Carried Away
Store Review (0)PRESENTED BY : Philippa Allen
| Medium | charcoal and tissue paper on paper |
|---|---|
| Location | Cape Town, South Africa |
| Height | 65.00 cm |
| Width | 50.00 cm |
| Artist | Philippa Allen |
| Year | 2020 |
This artwork is off an exhibition that I had at the AVA in 2020 titled "Ghostscapes". The exhibition statement is as follows:Latest Drawings, Ghostscapes
In examining the concept of belonging, I began by looking at the indigenous landscapes that surround me. Working with familiar local scenes I tried to imagine the view untouched by human hand, drawing the landscape as it would have existed before any human additions were made to it. Fascinated by what this original landscape might have looked like, I researched historical photographs which revealed when the first human-made structures were built and what they looked like. Using these pictures and working off current photographs, I have either layered these structures onto the richness of the charcoal landscape using coloured or white chalk or I’ve made the marks by erasing and pulling charcoal off of the paper. By playing with, adding to, and removing from these concrete representations I am making them less permanent and powerful; more ephemeral and fleeting. I want the chalk or the erasing to seem like a latticework, a pattern on the landscape which in some cases threatens to choke the ground below it, as it covers so much of the space.
I have also used collage to represent the shapes created by buildings. I have done this randomly, a change from depicting the actual image to imagining how it could look. This gives me licence to extend and exaggerate the collage on top of the drawing. One can see the landscape through the opaque paper cut-outs and imagine it without the overlay of shapes, but the overriding image is that of these ghostly structures occupying the scene.
Charcoal is a strong dramatic medium, steadfast and clear. I see nature as multidimensional and enduring. For me, the rocks and plants surpass human development. Despite the chokehold of the built environment, nature survives. The lines used to draw the buildings are one dimensional and changeable. The natural landscape was here long before any structures were built on it and it will continue to remain the same as buildings and people come and go. The drawings are a palimpsest of these landscapes, the scene reused and altered but still showing traces of its earlier form, the structures effacing the natural setting.
