Painter Lois Dodd in her studio in Cushing, Maine
I’ve recently completed reading a new monograph
on Lois Dodd, a favourite painter. I was very inspired by the work, and also Dodd’s
persistent commitment to creating most of her paintings ‘en plein air’, that is
outside on location, working from direct observation.
Lois Dodd, 'Blair Pond With Ice', oil on canvas, 2002-3, 121 x 81.2cms
Before making a more serious commitment to
depicting the landscape with the paintings I have been making for the last few
years, I have dabbled with ‘en plein air’ painting myself to create studies on
location. It’s an approach I enjoy, as it requires a really different way of
thinking to work direct in front of the subject and outdoors in often ever
changing elements, and have admired in the work of such painters as Dodd, Fairfield
Porter, Alex Katz, Andrew Wyeth and more recently David Hockney’s ambitious
Yorkshire Landscapes project. When I travelled to Scandinavia in 2012 the work
I created whilst there was made entirely ‘en plein air’.
A painting by Fairfield Porter, oil on canvas, 1950s (title and dimensions unknown)
These
painters I’ve mentioned above manage to do something much more modern with this
way of painting than much of the painting that you see associated with working
this way, however. To my mind an awful lot of ‘plein air’ painting is often characterised
by a loose, brushy type of Impressionist/Post-Impressionist -like painting (who
were of course the first pioneers of ‘en plein air’
oil painting with the
advent of the availability of oil paint in tubes in a sense of making actual finished
paintings rather than just studies outdoors) that I am wary of. Dodd, Porter
and Katz’s work however, forged in a climate of a New York art scene dominated
by Abstract Expressionism in the 1940’s and 50’s, is characterised more by an economy
of means, where the subject is boiled down to its essence, using key lessons learned
from the language of abstraction, but retaining a convincing sense of keen
observation through the deployment of light and colour relationships. These are
not easy things to do.
Painting by Simon Ling (details unknown)
It was nice then the other week to also stumble
across the work of London based painter Simon Ling, who also works ‘en plein
air’ to create his striking and unusual paintings based on the urban landscape
around his studio. With an easel carried around in a makeshift contraption
attached to his bike, Ling makes fairly large paintings on the street. I’m
really curious to know more about how he manages to do this, and like very much
the wobbly paintings of shopfronts, doors, and windows, as if the easel is
sliding across the street as he works.
Painting by Simon Ling (details unknown)
I more like however, his paintings of scrubby patches
of nondescript corners of the urban landscape. They are very ‘edgelands’ like. Ling
also makes strange, intense still life paintings from unusual and elaborate
set-ups in his studio. Ling describes well that…
“Painting is really good at
getting you close to certain kinds of things. Subtle is radical,” says Ling.
“You make a mark with paint, it holds that thing, for as long as anybody’s
going to look at it. That movement [of looking] is now held in a material. You
combine all those energies and you make this thing which is a living record.”
Simon Ling, 'Gravity's Garden', oil on canvas, 2003, 262 x 338cms
Simon Ling, Untitled, 2012, oil on canvas, 152 x 91.5cms
My own landscape
paintings now are not made ‘en plein air’ anymore. They are reliant largely on
photographs I take for ideas and reference, and observational drawings I continually
work on in sketchbooks. I would like to get back to attempting some more painting
made on location though, inspired once more by some of these examples of how to
do this and create something contemporary. I’m going to try and work on some
strategies to make this happen in the coming months.
Postscript: I've just remembered another exciting contemporary plein air painter, Josephine Halvorson! I really like her paintings too. Here's a couple of links: http://www.josephinehalvorson.com
