Elemental — Collaborating with Nature

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Elemental Paintings and their Process

Chance has been a big theme that has run though much of my work, particularly the idea of giving up control as the artist. Nature and the elements have been a focus for this reason, often being unpredictable and uncontrollable, and I have tried a few ways of utilising this quality in my own work. I have made work on paper using the elements as part of the process, using raw pigment as a medium. I sprinkled the dry pigment onto the paper and the took it out into the rain. Where the rain hits the pigment it stays on the paper, mixing with the rainwater and turning into paint that stays on the paper. I also utilised the wind in these drawings, hanging a paintbrush from a tree and letting the wind move the brush across the paper, spreading the wet and dry pigment into an unpredictable composition. When the wind wasn't strong enough the move the small brush I attached a paper "sail" to the wire in order to use the full force of the wind. I have made a compilation video of the process of making these elemental paintings.

Click on the image to see the complete film on YouTube.

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Using the Sea

Having painted some canvases using water based paints I then allowed the sea to work it's magic. One wave was usually enough.

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Rain and Wind Music Scores – Composing with Nature

I feel these visual representations of the elements are successful, but I also wanted to bring sound into it, and find a way to create a piece of music or sound work as an audio representation of nature. I considered making an instrument that could be played by the wind, rain or sea, such as a wind chime or Aeolian harp, but in the end I decided to use the paintings I had already made, not just as drawings but as music scores to play from. Some of them are so loud as visual works, you feel you could almost hear them just by looking at them. Some in particular remind me of the work of Wassily Kandinsky, an abstract painter influenced by music and sound, suggesting that sounds could be communicated through his paintings.

Having decided to use these drawings essentially as sheet music, I had to figure out exactly how I would read them. Because they are not time based, I had no boundaries for how long the piece should be, and no direction where I should start on the page, or even which way up the drawing should go. I decided to make some more elemental paintings, but this time I would draw out several five-line music staves onto the paper first. This way it is much clearer how to read it and how to translate the drawing into sound. I used pigment again on top of a set of staves, but I also used watercolour, making sure the lines were still wet when I placed the paper outside. Where the rain hit a line of a stave, it would create a blob of water that would immediately be filled with ink, creating the appearance of a note on a stave. It depended on how much it was raining, whether I got a minimal, formulaic piece, or expressive washes of tone that I had to play more intuitively.

Click on any picture to see a slide show of the complete set.

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Improvised Sound Works based on Elemental Scores

I recorded myself singing an improvisation based on some of the rain and wind paintings. They are very intuitive and are made to be viewed alongside the visual "scores". I also improvised on the piano using these as sheet music to play from.

Improvised Rain 1 – Rebecca Kent

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Improvised Rain 2 – Rebecca Kent

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Improvised Rain songs at the piano – Rebecca Kent

Click on the image to see the complete film on YouTube.

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