This post is about the creative process, the story behind- and second exhibition of my dyptich (double canvas) painting called: ”What is Your Bird View”?
To check out the creation process stream the video at the end of this post.
It all started with a semi-quick sketch in 2017.
As I can recall it was one of those many moments when I suddenly had a vision, but unlike most of the time, thís time I choose to put it on paper so I wouldn’t forget. I remember that I thought something like: ”this is going to be a more conceptual work and also a “quicker” production” lol .. I never take the easy road, what was I thinking? I thought this time I would create some more ‘commercial’ work possibly fit for art-rental. I did, but I took quite some
time for it, of course, I always do.
3 years later I finished the work! Mind you I never work on one art piece at once, so this work has been standing ‘on hold’ somewhere in a corner of my workspace for quite some time as I worked on it in different periods within these three years.
I started ‘free-painting’ .. just putting shapes and colors on the canvas intuitively that were suppose to express a natural environment seen from above.
After finishing this backdrop from the top of my head I began to add layers on top from several, maybe 8, reference pictures I found online, such as this one:
I never used a whole picture, just pieces of it, to create my own world based on the first intuitive layer.
I repeated this in combination with made-up plants of which some I left more abstract and or figurative throughout the whole process.
This combination of different styles is my personal art style. My work is eclectic.
So the concept …
A subject that seems to return on my canvases; nature vs city. I have been intrigued by this contrast since I was a young teenager. I grew up with weekly visits to the forest with my parents when I was little and my mother taught me about wild herbs and plants and trees. But I also grew up in a small steelfactory-city (Beverwijk) on the west coast of The Netherlands. This steelfactory took a húge part of the dunes between the beach and city. Industrial and Natural sights.. this contrast that has been staring me in the face has only grown bigger and bigger and now we are in a time where Climate Change is a daily issue.
As I moved to my beloved city Amsterdam, Southeast Bijlmer that is, this contrast kept being a daily factor in my life. I love the rural city life, full of creativity and possibilities! But I love nature more.. and Bijlmer has a perfect balance for me, because it is super green and spacious. Anyways.. gentrification pushed me back to the steelfactory area. But that’s another story.
The city part of this dyptich painting I created in a similar way, as I used reference images of cities seen from above. To find these.. I went on Google Earth and traveled the world, lol. I took like 6 or 8 printscreens of parts of big cities on the westcoast of the USA. Again.. I never used the whole picture and put buildings next to eachother to my liking.
Both paintings have the same composition. As in one the whole area is filled with nature and only in the middle there is a little rectangular shaped wooden house. The other painting is the opposite; whole area filled with buildings only to leave out the exact place and size for a simple court yard with grass.
These two express the contrast of different environments of the planet we live on, and shows how we either fill it, or leave it be.
How do you prefer to see your environment? What is Your Bird View?
Last year I had the opportunity to exhibit this work together with another one of mine with a similar theme in the then new Sound Light Color gallery (Amsterdam) during their first opening. https://www.olnuzola.com/post/second-expo-this-season
Unfortunately due to the krona and the fact that the gallery was still new, not too much people were able to see it.
This year ‘21 from june till august I have been exhibiting it again in CBK Zuidoost gallery (Amsterdam Bijlmer) during their group exhibition Zomer Salon Royaal. Their theme was ‘ruimte’ which translates to ‘space’.
the work is for sale.
(above) A nice surprise was that the curator(s) had put my work above my fellow artist and friend Evert A. Robles‘ work. (the blue woman).
(below) My Love Gervicent and me.
Watch the video below to check out the process:
Ps, I’m in need of a new camera because the pictures I have and have posted here of my work don’t really do them justice.
If you would like to support me you can donate money to me here:
Peace and Blessings,
Thank you for reading and enjoy your environment!
Olga Olnuzola Nunnink
