New York’s Modern Architecture Mirrors its Light By The Hudson River. Friday, April 19, 2019, my new art works are presented at the Michèle Mariaud Gallery in SoHo New York, during a jazz concert given by French duo, Stefan Orins pianist and Patricia Jeanne Delmotte singer @patriciajeannedelmotte, thank you to Emma for her outstanding framing work and to Michele Mariaud for hosting the event.
iPad Artworks
In 2017, while discovering the ancient city of Genova (Italy) and it’s complex grid of narrow streets, so intricate one gets lost in it, I felt the urgency to lighten even more my art equipment fitting on my backpack, also I needed to be physical invisible while doing my art work. I took the risk on buying there a mini iPad, having absolutely no clue where this will lead me. When I returned to NYC I took daily this “ immaterial “ tool to my favorite spot by the Hudson River, ( I already had worked on this area the urban scape in 1995 when my studio was located in Tribeca).
One of my obsessive goal has always been to figure out ways to extend my working time outdoors, even when temperatures start to drop down during the fall and winter days. By June 2018, this “ Italian “ mini iPad had allowed me to come out with a base of work, interesting enough considering the innovation, but limited by its small size as well as the poor accuracy of its stylet and by too big fingers rubbing into the screen… than the miracle happened, my technology expert friend Frank found the answer: he offered me an iPad with the pencil saying: “ here, take it, you are made for each other…”. Still, the iPad has not really been designed to draw and paint work outdoors! So, it takes some adjustments to overcome the two majors obstacles: the glare ( réflexion on the glass ) and the slippery pencil while drawing on the glass surface… at times the outdoors luminously is such that it is virtually impossible to “ read” what line is drawn on your screen, when the device is challenging you, there is no other way but to trick the device…or at least overcome the problems.
Drawing in such a way, basically with “ electricity “, could have been the cave artist man/woman dream given by God… but he/she would have come short of his/her joy from what this “ immaterial “ tablet is able to deliver, unless projected in the dark stone slate of his/her raw habitat! Similarity as in the case of engraving and certainly on early photography, from the “ image” (film): both techniques requires to be “revealed” on their full physical form, that is to say mainly and traditionaly on paper.
And here we are, the small format tablet allowed to be processed on large size sheet of paper… but one cannot satisfactorily stop there. This was confirmed by Matisse himself when he stated: “ the small image cannot been enlarged big”, what he meant was basically: if the image needed to makes any sense its requires to acquire its own “balance”, be consistant with its transformation. One quarter inch line that becomes blowned up into a four each one does not have the same “ dynamic “ or “signification” visually and esthetically. This is why the enlarged artwork needs to acquire physical growing to justify its own new life…same like after a baby coming out does not stay for ever at his/her initial stage!
For this reason, I have returned to the exact site I started on the with iPad [ sometimes one year ago] to continue growing into the process, this time on the image-paper, to answer (or at least try) the requirements that demand the “physical” and tactile vision.
Dessin . drawing . original linoleum cut and woodcut .
linogravure originale et gravures .
Copyrights Raymond Verdaguer 2019
