Landscape Syncopation

Landscape Syncopation

24" x 20" - acrylic on canvas - SOLD

This work was inspired by the photo below, taken several summers ago at a friend's cottage in Ontario. 

Since then I have made several attempt to interpret it, but none really felt right. Until recently. In the first process shots below (left) I basically had a composition and some colour down, but I didn't want to stay so literal. In the second photo (right) I was trying to abstract the trees more, and chunk up the colour/value shapes of the sky, land, and water and connect them with the trees. 

The more I painted and enlarged the colour/value shapes I became happier and excited, adding more linear black lines and repetitive smaller geometric shapes within the larger ones. It became a process of obliterating but leaving traces of what had been there. I loved what I was seeing emerge. My challenge of course was to not over-work the surface and I think I succeeded. 

When finished it reminded me of Piet Mondrian's "Broadway Boogie Woogie" from 1942-43, hanging in MOMA in NYC. The gallery's label explains that Mondrian "was fascinated by jazz and  boogie woogie music in particular", which was known for its syncopated rhythms. 

"In music, syncopation involves a variety of rhythms which are in some way unexpected, making part or all of a tune or piece of music off-beat. More simply, syncopation is "a disturbance or interruption of the regular flow of rhythm......Syncopation can also occur when a strong harmony is placed on a weak beat....".  

I think syncopation appears in my painting through the repetitive and rhythmic arrangement of small and large geometric shapes that together form the landscape elements, but also seem to move or hover on the surface, and act like small abstract compositions within the larger one.