Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Black and White Series: Family Travelling At Night Again (2005)

2 comments:

Loren said...

I would find it interesting to hear a discussion of how the limits of this particular media affected the art, am.

All of these portraits seem to show "isolated" families, or at least that's my impression.

But that's not what I seem to have heard in your discussion of your family.

am said...

I am not sure where this series of images of a young family travelling at night came from. My recollection is that my intention was to draw a man and a woman walking peacefully at night, and then it occurred to me to draw a child to walk with them. I thought of them as a strong, if small, family, protective of their only child who feels safe enough to walk confidently ahead of them.

It fascinates me how simple black or white silhouettes can be expressive in a loose way, open to interpretation by the viewer.

When I showed these images to a group of young people, one of them who referred to himself as a Canadian Indian asked if I had ever been hiking near Missoula, Montana at night. He said, "I like this very much. That is exactly what it looks like there."

I did have in mind the idea of parents wanting their child to experience a beloved landscape, lit by moonlight, as I have clear memories of hiking under moonlight from my childhood.

The recent lack of discussion on my blog page is a result of the "preview" function of Blogger being "broken" for the last several days. I find it difficult to write at length when I can't "preview" what I am writing : o )

The preview function for comments still works!