Upon being given the task to ‘consume a book’, I decided to relate this to my Contemporary Project and read into one artist I’m looking at currently. Here I decided to go for an artist I knew little about, which in my case was Anselm Kiefer.

Whilst scanning the library for any related material, I came across the book ‘Anselm Kiefer’ which was produced in London by the Royal Academy of Arts (2014). This book was made alongside an exhibition titled ‘Anselm Kiefer’ which was in honour of his work to the present day.

Throughout Kiefer is mentioned as a ‘most important’ contemporary artist of the late 20^th century. He transcends an array of mediums ranging from sculpture, photography as well painting and installation to convey the taboo subject of Nazism. He reflects upon Germany’s dark past, referring to the holocaust, and unearths the raw emotion that still lies within the subject today. It’s stated that “he allows us to discover a whole that is greater than its visible sum” (pg 149), meaning that he allows for more to be seen, and opens our eyes to a time that can often be over looked. This book looks upon his oeuvre and highlights the deep-rooted connections the German painter has towards such topics, being so closely born to the era in 1945. This not only creates a complex relationship with his art, but also introduces a spiritual influence into his work as well.

Bibliography:

SORIANO, K. LEA, S. KIEFER A. (2014) Royal Academy of Arts. London.

Here I looked at abstract landscape painting. I used acrylic paint, which was placed over natural mud that I stuck to the canvas using PVA glue. I gathered the mud during a walk I went upon in my local woodland area, this took a natural source from my walk directly into my work. The mud and other natural materials I gathered on the walk, are in the jars next to the painting. In this piece I chose to focus on a specific tree I came across, and how the marks in the bark depicted a unique formation. This was shown by running ink down across the canvas, with a green tint to represent its natural occurrence. The background is made up of the formation/colours of the tree’s trunk and its surroundings. This was created on top of the mud in acrylic paint. I chose this medium to work with as it dries quickly, and with that I could form layers of the paint on top of one another. This not only symbolises the layers of the tree but also creates a good blend of colours within the scene. Finally, the 5 larger grey marks stretching across the canvas represent the mould that can be seen on the original tree which inspired me. I chose to represent these going across the ‘tree’ and not along it, to make the painting appear more abstract than realistic. The white speckled marks also represent the smaller markings of mould, as well as showing the background peering through the tree, like the sky pears through the leaves on a typical day.