Museum Project Research
As I have decided my Museum Project piece will be based on The Swimming Pool by Thomas Rathmell, today I have been researching other artists who have painted the subject.
The obvious swimming pool painter is of course David Hockney, but many other artists revel in the challenge of painting the human body submerged in water - Samantha French and Scout Cuomo are a couple of my favourites, but today I have found other wonderful, inspirational art and artists working along this theme.
Samantha French
Samantha French
"Rise Up"
I have followed Samantha French on Instagram for a while - her work is stunning. She lives in New York with her partner, another painter I admire, Aaron Hauck and their very cute dog.
Aaron Hauck
Her artist statement says:
"My current body of work is focused on swimmers underwater and above. Using vague yet consuming memories from my childhood summers spent immersed in the tepid lakes of northern Minnesota, I attempt to recreate the quiet tranquillity of water and nature; of days spent sinking and floating, still and peaceful. These paintings are a link to my home and continual search for the feeling of the sun on my face and warm summer days at the lake. They are my escape, a subtle reprieve from the day-to-day. At the same time, I am drawn to an idealistic time before my own, where swim caps and wool swimsuits were commonplace. This combination of memory, observation and photography has allowed me to preserve the transitory qualities of water and remembrance."
The obvious swimming pool painter is of course David Hockney, but many other artists revel in the challenge of painting the human body submerged in water - Samantha French and Scout Cuomo are a couple of my favourites, but today I have found other wonderful, inspirational art and artists working along this theme.
Samantha French
Samantha French
"Rise Up"
I have followed Samantha French on Instagram for a while - her work is stunning. She lives in New York with her partner, another painter I admire, Aaron Hauck and their very cute dog.
Aaron Hauck
Her artist statement says:
"My current body of work is focused on swimmers underwater and above. Using vague yet consuming memories from my childhood summers spent immersed in the tepid lakes of northern Minnesota, I attempt to recreate the quiet tranquillity of water and nature; of days spent sinking and floating, still and peaceful. These paintings are a link to my home and continual search for the feeling of the sun on my face and warm summer days at the lake. They are my escape, a subtle reprieve from the day-to-day. At the same time, I am drawn to an idealistic time before my own, where swim caps and wool swimsuits were commonplace. This combination of memory, observation and photography has allowed me to preserve the transitory qualities of water and remembrance."
However I would have thought she uses a go-pro underwater camera to photograph friends in pools and paints from the photographs - most of her work appears to be in pools rather than lakes and no-one can get that kind of detail of glimmering light reflected and refracted and colours altered through water from memory and observation!
However she does it, her contemporary oil paintings set her apart from anyone else - the crisp, clear colour, the light, the movement, the reflections...wow! The scale too - many of her paintings are over 5 ft tall & 6 ft wide. Perfect for public spaces and big business office walls!
My favourite piece is Dive in; Float
Scout Cuomo
Another artist I follow in instagram is Scout Cuomo. She has an unusual process of mixing pigment with epoxy resin and painting in layers on glass, which gives a beautiful light and 3d effect to her work. I was initially attracted to her small bird and animal paintings on glass, but she is best known for her series of paintings of people floating in and exploring life underwater.
She has a much more impressionistic approach than Samantha French, much softer and more vague marks. In some paintings she does appear to have tried to capture the crispness of Samantha French's work, but I prefer the 'blobbier' ones!
Carol Bennett
Carol Bennett is another painter of the female form swimming in her series 'Women in Water' and 'Swimmers on Paper'. Originally from LA but living in Hawaii, she swims 7 days a week and the swimmer in her work is herself.
In some of her work I find her painting of the reflections of light on the body less well observed and a bit naive compared with the previous 2 artists, however I love the way she paints the surface of the water. The colours feel much more subdued and warm and 'vintage'.
In the 'Swimmers on Paper' series (above), she works in oil and acrylic on hand wood-grained paper and in the 'Women in Water' series (below), she works in oil and acrylic on board - I think the latter loses something without the wood grain.
In some of her work I find her painting of the reflections of light on the body less well observed and a bit naive compared with the previous 2 artists, however I love the way she paints the surface of the water. The colours feel much more subdued and warm and 'vintage'.
In the 'Swimmers on Paper' series (above), she works in oil and acrylic on hand wood-grained paper and in the 'Women in Water' series (below), she works in oil and acrylic on board - I think the latter loses something without the wood grain.
Ana Teresa Fernandez
Ana Teresa Fernandez
Ana Teresa Fernandez is painting on the same theme again in her 'Ablution series, yet with a completely different feeling to the previous 3 artists. Her hyper-real work is super-crisp, looking like a photograph that has been air-brushed rather than being oil paintings on canvas. To me it has an '80's feel to it, with the little black dress and stiletto's - I imagine a yuppie cocaine fuelled party got out of hand with the lady in the cocktail dress jumping in the pool fully clothed while off her face!
She talks about the idea's and meaning behind the Ablution series in the following video - I think I may have been a little off the mark!
Vimeo - Ana Teresa Fernandez on Ablution series
Ivy Smith
Ivy Smith
Ivy Smiths paintings are closer in subject to Thomas Rathmells Swimming Pool - they are of groups of people and not necessarily just elegantly posed beautiful women. They are more noisy, splashy, real paintings - again I can hear echoey shouting and squealing and splashing when I look at her work.
She painted her 'swimmers' series between 1995 and 2010 and worked on large canvasses in oil paint.
Again, it's the contrast of what's above and below the waterline that interests me.
I had a good think about the works of these 4 women today and the Thomas Rathmell painting that my own piece is to be based on. Whilst I admire and an somewhat in awe of the photographic crispness of Samantha French and Ana Teresa Fernandez, I find myself more drawn to looser, blobbier style of Scout Cuomo and Carol Bennett. I also like the idea of something calmer and less noisy, so I would like to concentrate on a single bather.
I was thinking of Scouts process of layering paint and resin to give a 3d effect, then thought why not take it a step further and have sheets of glass with a layer of painting on each sheet, building much more clearly defined layered effect.
I then found the following works that have been built up in the way that I envisaged:
Layer of Reminiscence by Torawo Nakagawa
Ripple Fog by Jess Hurley Scott
I like the idea of having maybe 3 or 4 layers - the background, then the swimmer in opaque layers - acrylic paint on clear glass or acrylic, then the water, reflections and refractions in a transparent medium. I plan on standing the panels in a wooden block with equi-distant slots as per the Torawo Nakagawa piece, although much smaller!
All of the paintings above seem to be looking from underneath the water - I want to do something half and half like the swimmer in Thomas Rathmells painting - I want to create a clear distinction between the clarity of the part of the body above the water and the vagueness of that below.
Something like this:
or this:
or this:
But probably the first one! I would like to take my own photo's but I suspect I might get in trouble taking photo's in the public swimming pool these days! As I don't have access to a private pool, I will have to source an inspiration photo from the internet.
Next step is to see if College can supply me with such things, or contact local glazing company to see if they have any single-glazed windows in their skips that I can re-purpose...so excited to try this!
Ana Teresa Fernandez
Ana Teresa Fernandez is painting on the same theme again in her 'Ablution series, yet with a completely different feeling to the previous 3 artists. Her hyper-real work is super-crisp, looking like a photograph that has been air-brushed rather than being oil paintings on canvas. To me it has an '80's feel to it, with the little black dress and stiletto's - I imagine a yuppie cocaine fuelled party got out of hand with the lady in the cocktail dress jumping in the pool fully clothed while off her face!
She talks about the idea's and meaning behind the Ablution series in the following video - I think I may have been a little off the mark!
Vimeo - Ana Teresa Fernandez on Ablution series
Ivy Smith
Ivy Smith
Ivy Smiths paintings are closer in subject to Thomas Rathmells Swimming Pool - they are of groups of people and not necessarily just elegantly posed beautiful women. They are more noisy, splashy, real paintings - again I can hear echoey shouting and squealing and splashing when I look at her work.
She painted her 'swimmers' series between 1995 and 2010 and worked on large canvasses in oil paint.
Again, it's the contrast of what's above and below the waterline that interests me.
I had a good think about the works of these 4 women today and the Thomas Rathmell painting that my own piece is to be based on. Whilst I admire and an somewhat in awe of the photographic crispness of Samantha French and Ana Teresa Fernandez, I find myself more drawn to looser, blobbier style of Scout Cuomo and Carol Bennett. I also like the idea of something calmer and less noisy, so I would like to concentrate on a single bather.
I was thinking of Scouts process of layering paint and resin to give a 3d effect, then thought why not take it a step further and have sheets of glass with a layer of painting on each sheet, building much more clearly defined layered effect.
I then found the following works that have been built up in the way that I envisaged:
Layer of Reminiscence by Torawo Nakagawa
Ripple Fog by Jess Hurley Scott
I like the idea of having maybe 3 or 4 layers - the background, then the swimmer in opaque layers - acrylic paint on clear glass or acrylic, then the water, reflections and refractions in a transparent medium. I plan on standing the panels in a wooden block with equi-distant slots as per the Torawo Nakagawa piece, although much smaller!
All of the paintings above seem to be looking from underneath the water - I want to do something half and half like the swimmer in Thomas Rathmells painting - I want to create a clear distinction between the clarity of the part of the body above the water and the vagueness of that below.
Something like this:
or this:
or this:
But probably the first one! I would like to take my own photo's but I suspect I might get in trouble taking photo's in the public swimming pool these days! As I don't have access to a private pool, I will have to source an inspiration photo from the internet.
Next step is to see if College can supply me with such things, or contact local glazing company to see if they have any single-glazed windows in their skips that I can re-purpose...so excited to try this!
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