Output details

Google Paintings

This work comprises a grid of landscape sketches executed in oil paint on prepared paper, framed under glass with the relevant Google Earth co-ordinates as a caption. The grid was first shown as work in progress during a week long artist residency 'Transitions 8' at Newlyn Gallery, Cornwall, in September 2008, and were fully completed in 2009. They were exhibited in the major international exhibition ‘Beyond the Picturesque’ at the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (SMAK) in Ghent, Belgium in April of that year A substantial catalogue, featuring images of the Google Paintings, was published by SMAK to accompany the exhibition. The work was described and commented upon in a review of the Beyond the Picturesque in Metropolis M magazine. In 2012 the Google Paintings were exhibited at Galerie des petits carreaux a commercial gallery in Paris. Photographic documentation of the Paris installation of this work is included in Issue 1 of the Open Arts Journal (Open University). As paintings derived from computer and satellite / GPS technology, presented with traditional sketching techniques, materials and framing, the Google Paintings follow my ongoing artistic and research concerns with landscape and the science fiction imaginary. They arose from an ongoing exploration in my work around relationships between the role of the artist in making an‘artist’s impression’ through interpretative looking, alongside themes of both positionality of viewership and economy of sign in painting.

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