’Land Art’
(series: rock, tree, water)
Myvanwy Gibson
3 places around Tenna – GPS: Rock: 46.741000, 9.331806 / Tree: 46.745250, 9.345500 / Water: 46.693135, 9.321775
‘Rock’ Location: Innerbergruiti, Schiessstand.
‘Tree’ Location: Grossruiti, Sattel Weide.
‘Water’ Location: 735 Walserweg Safiental Stage
My practice is an aesthetic experimentation of a way of thinking based on a non-hierarchical ontology. Thinking in a dialectical way I acknowledge the opposite or inversion of anthropocentricism, with the aim to arrive at a point of unity beyond ‘human and the other’.
The idea of ‘landscape’ is a man made construct, the landscape being a thing to be viewed by man as scenery, setting and painting. If we take ‘landscape’ as a verb – nature, or the land, is always in the passive position and is the object acted upon or shaped by man. In relation to man’s subject/object relation with many things (in this particular case to nature) and considering the possible verity of the principle of the unity of opposites, I believe man will ultimately have to bend to the force and portentousness of nature to re-address the balance.
This series of works then intends to invert the thought of ‘man shaping the land’, in that nature takes the active position and becomes the subject of the work. It is land or nature that is acting on man, or more literally, on the man-made substance. The work is representational of the thought ‘land shaping the people’ – and in actuality the process of creation is also reflected in this thought. Artificial plastic substrates painted with man-made pigments are shaped by the natural elements, and highly artificial, almost chemical colors via their extreme contrast, aim to open a way to see nature anew.
If taken literally, the title of the works as ‘Land art’ can take on an almost humorous element – is this how nature would make art? Or does this question, even in asking, enable us to see ourselves and our endeavours in a new light in relation to nature?
Rock: Material: pigments, polymers, acrylic glass, strap. Size: variable / Tree: Material: pigments, polymers, acrylic glass, strap, rock, feather. Size: variable / Water: Material: pigments, polymers, acrylic glass, strap. Size: variable.
Myvanwy Gibson, born 1965 in Australia. Based in Milan, Italy