canandanann

Eyes-apparently

If your eyes are your only sense, and suppose other senses such as smell, touch, hearing and taste are disabled, how do you perceive reality? As an “image” on a photograph, screen, print? Moving images are still perceptible, but if the world before your eyes does not move as it does in a photograph, it may seem that your perception is nothing more than a collection of separate images randomly strung together. Yet this is not true, because our perception of reality through our eyes is guided by our ability to think. Our memory and our prior knowledge of reality colour our perception, give it meaning and thus significance. Preoccupation with what we already know and understand sets the parameters for what we actually see. A child learns to see reality through the language it learns. This creates meaning that colours later perceptions. As adults, we cannot start from scratch if we switch off all senses other than sight.

These thoughts came to me as I reflected on the fact that I use images (photographs) of landscapes in my (sometimes abstract) paintings of landscapes. The photograph is the starting point, that is to say, a static landscape with or without colour (old photographs) stimulates me to add part of the surrounding landscape. And I do so in an expressionist and, above all, impressionist manner. I expressively reinterpret the impression that the landscape in the photograph makes on me in an impressionistic whole of colours, an atmospheric image, a new original representation. Often, the photograph is only visible when looking closely; many superficial viewers do not see it at first glance.

Why do I use this method? I am not familiar with many landscapes (such as mountain landscapes) from my own experience. I only know them from images. This also includes landscapes from the past. Unlike photographs of a landscape taken yesterday, these will never return. I find photographs on the internet. For example, if themes interest me, I sometimes use images of landscapes or situations. Photographs that I take myself or (holiday) photographs that I am allowed to use from others form the starting point for my paintings. These are always a selection based on personal preference. There are so many images in circulation that it is impossible to search for suitable images on the internet. That is why I only use images that move me (including by taking photos of documentaries on television). And chance can play a role. Not everything has to be painted. Many old holiday photos that would otherwise just gather dust in albums are used for small abstract landscapes. And old tourist snapshots, collected for tourists at the beginning of the last century (1910-1960) in small folders, sometimes form the beginning of a new series.

In addition to painting these landscapes, I do something else that is characteristic of my way of working. I often create landscapes in series because I have a number of photographs of an area or region. Placed one after the other, they form a new view of reality and, accompanied by music I have composed myself, they give an impression of how I view this reality and how I use the images that now appear in a new context as paintings. It is not a collage technique but a landscape-with-photo process. 'Photo with landscape' is widely known, but “landscape with photo” is hardly known. You can also see this in the hashtags on the internet. Videos I have made in this way can be found on one of my websites: https://www.youtube.com/@canandanann-abstracts

I use pigments (ground colourants) that I combine with a binder (acrylate binder and/or casein) and water. This produces a watery paint. That is why I do not paint on an easel but on a flat table. I also use sumi-e, a form of vegetable dye that resembles ink but is not. In combination with pigments, chance often plays a role because the paints react with each other. In the more than 50 years that I have been painting, I have gained a lot of experience in using these paints, paper and other materials on which I sometimes work. The use of different binders with different pigments also sometimes leads to surprising results that were not known in advance. Chance, through the use and composition of these materials, therefore plays a major role in my work. Even though it is often only the eye that participates in viewing the end result – the painting – the invitation to the viewer is to take what they perceive and the associations it evokes and run with it. The viewer gives their own interpretation based on their own experience and memory, thereby also giving meaning to the work. I am happy to provide more information about my work. Please contact me if you would like to know more.

John Hacking 

2023