The central area of each painting has been left in its gessoed prepared state, prompting a physical change in the manner in which the painting is viewed. The visible pictorial element is not a landscape painting but a painting of a postcard of a landscape – it is a painted impression of a flat surface. The road landscape, itself a loaded and evocative image leads the eye in, only to be confronted by the absence of image. A pull/push exists. This area is not an entity ‘blocking’ the expected view, it is an absence of content – pictorially and metaphorically. There is enough of the familiar looking postcard image to evoke certain feelings of nostalgia and personal memories, while the absence presents a serious interruption in the aesthetic and the work shifts to be a consideration of what is not there.
Just as in Hiroshi Sugimoto’s cinema photographs, a setting is provided, while the screen, or unpainted area conveys a story of all and nothing simultaneously.
New York artist – Steve Butcher. Artwork. minus space