Comments on: The Continuous Enveloping Sphere: Rackstraw Downes’ Vision

By: June

June — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:06:36 +0000

Steve — Thanks tons for the reference. I checked out the first image example and noted that it took me a tad of time to see the bulge. So my brain is compensating for its compensation, perhaps?

It’s evidence indeed of why visual art is eternally fascinating and changeable. “Representative” art only represents a tiny fraction of the possibilities inherent in any given scene that might be encountered.

By: Steve Durbin

Steve Durbin — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:37:53 +0000

An easy-to-see example of the bulging I was trying to describe (comment 4) is in today’s NY Times. Pop up the larger checkerboard image and put your nose close to the screen. But it’s not very great if your head is still–it gets huge as you are moving towards the screen. Fascinating article.

By: lynne

lynne — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 06:45:18 +0000

yes I agree absolutely. And what we personally find interesting in a subject, whether landscape or whatever, what we focus on, is our personal ¨take ¨ on the subject, and then of course there are the wonderful magic things that happen , the rocks to the side In June´s painting, become more compelling, and therefore are larger than in ¨real¨ life, and hence more compelling , create an emotional effect (of some sort) whether completely consciously or not, but that´s the magic quality of making art too.

By: Steve Durbin

Steve Durbin — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 22:53:06 +0000

It seems indeed that Downes almost always includes strong “verticals,” mostly of buildings, in his cityscapes. Not rarely it’s an actual pole not too far from the center.

One thing he says in an essay in the book I found especially interesting:

I don’t find that I see systematically. I–we–have erratic, not to say subjective, reactions to size and scale; we do all kinds of things when looking: we shift our attention, turn and tilt, quickly or slowly, get interested in some parts and uninterested in others. The process of looking–especially the process of looking while making a drawing or a painting–is far too alive and spasmodic to be rationalized.

By: June

June — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 16:42:26 +0000

Thanks, Lynne, for your observations. I will check through other Rackstraw Downes’ images to see if he always uses a reference point in that way.

I don’t think this is an issue in my own painting — it doesn’t work very strenuously with the Downes’ “empirical” observations because it doesn’t push the horizon out much. The photo does, of course, but it’s just for reference.

I sense that Downes would say that the convention is what distorts reality and that the sense of vertigo one might feel when faced with his work is really only a cultural by-product of having our “true” senses distorted by photography and Renaissance ideas of perspective. I’m just speculating, of course.

By: lynne

lynne — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 13:45:54 +0000

*strange

By: lynne

lynne — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 13:45:28 +0000

One thing that I notice that is happening in the Rackstraw Downes paintings is the use of the vertical(line/object) in the (more or less)middle of the composition, an indicator for the point of view/focus of the artist´s eye;the same thing in david hockney´s composition which doesn´t happen in June´s painting; (this isn´t a criticismas I really like your work) but just to point out that one thing that might be bothering you June, about your compositions, in general is this lack of attention to the vertical refernce point.
We feel a vertiginous lack of stability in any photo or painting that has no mooroings to a cretain tradition or an accepted convention of ¨reality¨, verticals are vertical, and horizontals are horizontal. One can be ¨off¨ but when both are off if it gives a strabge sense of reality/vertigo etc…