Manifest MBBC - Art as Alternate Nicholas R

ABSTRACT INVESTIGATION

Inquiry phase 1 involves focused investigation in response to an individual inquiry question. It communicates how development processes and reflection on researched knowledge has informed the resolution of the individualised focus. This is an analysis between two artists; VERA MĂ–LLER and Rune Guneriussento determine whether my thesis “How does the evolving landscape inspire artists to create innovative artworks is correct

Nicholas R IA1

How does the evolving landscape inspire artists to create innovative artworks?

Natural adaption of the landscape is considered by many in art form in itself, through the way waves change the landscape of the beach to flat never-ending planes to Waverley and winding sand dunes is a mystery and beauty to all. As a society we are infatuated and how nature adapts itself to fit various changes in its surroundings. Recently when exploring the theory of nature in art I stumbled upon to artist that follow a similar identity to nature and its adaption. Rune Guneriussen a Norwegian artist documents his work by adding unnatural materials in natural ways. Many of his works incorporate images of natural landscapes from all over Norway, and it’s his observations of the natural landscape that inspire his work.

Similarly, to Guneriussen an artist by the name of VERA MÖLLER her exhibition A THOUSAND TIDES explorse the vital element which sustains all life on Earth, and the environmental and social challenges of today. I recently went on excursion to Goma (Gallery of modern Art) in Brisbane’s Southbank where I attended an exhibition called “Water”. “Be part of something extraordinary. Walk across a vast, rocky, indoor riverbed created by Olafur Eliasson. See animals from around the world gather together to drink from Cai Guo-Qiang’s brilliant blue waterhole. Gaze at Peter Fischli and David Weiss’s snowman, frozen despite Brisbane’s summer heat. Reflect on the cultural traditions of bodies of water, including the Brisbane River, with Judy Watson; and consider the long history of our reliance on water, illustrated by Megan Cope’s re-created midden.”

When exploring Water, I began to wonder on the social and environmental aspects of each of the artworks. it wasn’t how well they looked or sounded; it was the way it made you feel in the emotions that it invoked. For many of the artists and many of the installations I began to think about humanity’s reliance on water. Olafur Eliasson incredible installation that depicted in Iceland take Rocky River flowing through the landscape, his philosophy in this piece wasn’t to bring awareness of our interaction with the outside world to bring our feelings beliefs and experiences into a studio. The feeling of the water rushing between your fingertips or the sound it makes streaming over rocks is something you cannot simply draw on a piece of canvas or play through a cinema screen.

His work spoke that an artist needs to appreciate feelings that come naturally in order to present the audience with the unique but real experience. In turn his artwork explored a feeling in me that maybe wonder what it is that we owe it to the landscape around us how we affect it and how it’s adaption to what we do to it has inspired our artworks. When I look more political artist in the water installation, I discovered Megan Cope’s re-created midden. A series of hand casted oyster shells exploring Brisbane’s attachment to our unique Brisbane River and the Aboriginal and current day connections, for which we have two; for food and nutrients. It depicted to me that almost extinct and untraceable history that the water had provided for us was now something to be depicted in an artwork rather than a nature and this same feeling came to me when witnessing Olafur Eliasson’s work.

Water: The Exhibition | QLD Gallery of Modern Art

Rune Guneriussen as an artist believes strongly that art itself should be questioning and bewildering as opposed to patronising and restricting. As opposed to the current fashion he does not want to dictate a way to the understanding of his art, but rather indicate a path to understanding a story. His work heavily relies on the use of natural backgrounds mixed with his art installations. In artworks such as figure 1 and figure 2 you can see his use of unnatural materials in such an unwieldy and untouched landscape creates unique insight into him as an artist. His work seems to replace natural growth of various plants such as vines and mushrooms like the lamps in figure 2 and creates an abstract artwork that questions how nature evolves and changes. Guneriussen utilises evolving and adapting landscape in his artwork to create change and prospective, movies artworks carry a message that the audience must discover and read upon by themselves.

figure 2

figure 1

VERA MÖLLER a German-born artist who first studied biology rather than art displays how her scientific background informs her work, her love of the Great Barrier Reef, and why she is moving away from painting painstaking details of imaginary species. The sculptures and paintings of Möller present fictional hybrids that represent the permutations that take place in an environment as a consequence of pollution and global warming. Her direct understanding of how the ecosystem is affected by what we do and how it is adapting changing and dying as a result of us is inspiring her artwork through the use of sculptures to depict imaginary lifeforms and the use of lights and colour to change and adapt the way the viewer sees them. One of her more famous artworks and installations “ A Thousand Times” was an important piece in this year’s Water exhibition at Goma. MÖLLER’s project was shaped to reflect on some of the scintillating surfaces and structures found in sponge gardens, and sea slugs. she was equally interested in the wonderful expanses of mangrove air roots and sea grasses, which in turn inspired her artwork (Figure 3).

(Figure 3) Nature adapts and changes around us due to both natural and in natural causes both of these artists have been inspired to create a work that changes and adapts due to what they are witnessing. Guneriussen’s artworks are depictions of flora and fauna growths for the ways that the mushroom depict lamps and vines are depicted by books and lights. His interest in the natural world has inspired each and every artwork is committed to in unique and obscure ways. Breaking away from conformity of painting bleak pictures of the world around us he is incorporated in natural items in his pieces.

MÖLLER with her incredible insight on marine biology persuades her audience to take a more scientific approach to artwork inviting the viewer to experience the world that we have and why it is not ours to destroy. Her piece a thousand hides is a perfect description of how an evolving landscape inspires an artist as her investigation into climate change and pollution has sparked her journey to create conversational pieces. When the witness her

piece a thousand hides were equally thrown into our own perspective of how to see something that is considered ugly beautiful again such as mangroves in mud through her depiction through clay models and ultraviolet lights.

The inspiration for my two experimental art pieces with the adaption of natural landscapes found in Guneriussen artworks. His ability to change lights sound and feel of an image through his photography was something that inspire me to create different feelings of my own. I was inspired on how he used colour and kill your objects to display or to voice his opinion on the beauty that is found naturally. In figure 4 I adapted his artwork which to me spoke about natural verses in natural and patented bright vibrant colours on the base of a tree radiating out through colour change. this style and the added detail of leaving the roots unpainted are how I link back my enquiry question to my own artworks I’m showing how the adaption of the trees growth and how it passes and flows nutrients and fuel through the earth underneath it. the colours also depict how MÖLLER uses her scientific research to explain vital parts of her own are works, I wanted to use her research and voice of interconnectedness in my own art piece.

Figure 4 The second experimental artwork (Figure 5), depicts the same message and informational cues as the experimental piece before however this time I used the idea of in natural materials placed upon natural with bright red vibrant wool string. I was exploring how time and light change the way that we view sin and otherwise on important aspects of life such as how animals spin webs between trees or how ant trails wind and weave through branches. The central hanging part of the wall was designed to detect a heart or the central parts of the ecosystem that we fall upon. As MÖLLER was extremely inspired by the effects that climate change is having on our own ecosystem in the Great Barrier Reef I wanted to depict the humans I would be to blame for the ultimate survival of this planet, as such the wall strung in the middle to depict our connection to the nature that we live believe and rely upon where we are hanging wall in the middle lay and hang relying on the world around us whilst we also help to support it.

figure 5 This enquiry question has got me to explore how the world around us is affected by climate change. It’s interested me in how time has changed the way things grow and adapt due to their surroundings. Time-lapse in higher lapses have inspired me to have new ways of thinking about artworks. Another new and exciting median I’d like to explore is sculpture and light manipulation through how light affects and images stature and feeling. Another technique I have to explore that I feel would bring great importance is real-life experience such as the one given through Goma’s Water exhibition, I would like to bring some real-life contextual clues to my final piece.

Bibliography Qagoma.qld.gov.au. 2020. Water - QAGOMA. [online] Available at: <https://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/whatson/exhibitions/water?gclid=EAIaIQobChMInoCksuOb6AIVWamWCh3TngmiEAAYASAAEgJPmfD_Bw E> [Accessed 15 March 2020].

McKenzie, J., 2020. Vera Möller: ‘My Father Thought Going To Art School Was Like Wanting To Become A Communist’. [online] Studio International - Visual Arts, Design and Architecture. Available at: <https://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/vera-moller-interview-great-barrier-reef> [Accessed 15 March 2020].

Sophie Gannon Gallery. 2020. Vera Möller | Sophie Gannon Gallery. [online] Available at: <https://sophiegannongallery.com.au/artists/vera-mller> [Accessed 15 March 2020].

Rune Guneriussen Gallery. 2020. Rune Guneriussen Gallery. [online] Available at: <http://www.runeguneriussen.no/#5> [Accessed 15 March 2020].