This is an ongoing series entitled ‘Taking Liberties with the Masters’. They
are both a homage and intervention where I playfully interact on postcards and
book plates of other artists’ paintings. The images I select are part of the
flotsam and jetsam that embodies my studio practice as reference and
inspiration for other paintings.
Many of the paintings that we are familiar with and
inspired by have come to us through secondary imaging – via the internet,
printed in books or as reproduction postcards. It is a strange way to view
painting as it contains none of the fundamental qualities that encapsulate my
love of painting – namely paint. They lack a sense of scale, feel for paint
application and any beauty of surface. They still retain their qualities of
form and composition, but are changed into something new and almost
‘throwaway’.
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| Susann Sprouting Oil paint on found book plate 2014 |
Through adding oil paint onto the book plates, I find myself not only building an intimate relationship with these works, but it also brings the viewer up close to consider them once more as living paintings - mischievously re-contextualised and thereby continuing the ongoing conversation between artists throughout art history.
These four works are all Peter Paul Rubens book plates.
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| Closely Bound Oil paint on found book plate 2014 |
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| Over Time They Grew More Alike Oil on found book plate 2014 |
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| Detail of a Scene Oil on found book plate 2014 |
