Between Two Views, Carl Warner. 2021.

Image Detail: Falloch, Carl Warner, 37.5 X 50 cm Ultrachrome ink on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Edition of 5+1.

BETWEEN TWO VIEWS

CARL WARNER 22 January - 7 February 2021

Images taken during artists residency . Photo: Carl Warner.

A mirror allows us to see the impossible. The simplest expression of this impossibility is perhaps that with a mirror we can see ourselves and what is behind us, beyond our direct looking, all at once. In eighteenth century Britain, a particular type of compact mirror, the Claude glass, was used by artists and tourists to view and imaginatively shape the landscape into Picturesque talking points. It was such a popular activity that guidebooks advised of sites where the best views of outstanding landscapes were to be seen with the aid of the glass. The way of seeing and shaping landscape enabled by the Claude glass has numerous contemporary parallels. The mobile phone in size, shape and particular functions is the most obvious. Physically so similar, with the darkened face and fit in the hand, often protected by a protective case, today’s mobile technology does all that the original users of the glass desired. Aesthetic images made and shared in an instant through a transparent technology.

To make these works I walked one hundred miles through the Scottish Highlands and also went to the northern most point of the British Isles to the island of Unst. I was a tourist searching for views, as the earlier users of the glass, who made a familiar landscape strange in the views from their Claudes, were. Near the peak of Conic Hill overlooking Loch Lomond, I watched as people turned their back to the view to make pictures of it, unwittingly re-enacting the actions of those earlier tourists in hunt of the picturesque. The works in this series reference that pivot between two views, recto verso images that make the reduction of the real into two dimensions both obvious and problematic. The ellipse references the Claude glass in its most popular shape, a frame within a frame. They highlight a preference of one view over another, aesthetic decisions that obliterate and negate, but also raise the question: Are those views in the ellipse to the front or behind? — Carl Warner

Allt Doire Nan Each 2020 100 X 75 cm, Ultrachrome ink on HahnemĂźhle Photo Rag Edition of 5+1 $5500

Altnafeadh 2020 37.5 X 50 cm Ultrachrome ink on HahnemĂźhle Photo Rag Edition of 5+1 $3300

Baltasound 2020 37.5 X 50 cm Ultrachrome ink on HahnemĂźhle Photo Rag Edition of 5+1 $3300

Bressay 2020 100 X 75 cm, Ultrachrome ink on HahnemĂźhle Photo Rag Edition of 5+1 $5500

Conic Hill 2020 100 X 75 cm, Ultrachrome ink on HahnemĂźhle Photo Rag Edition of 5+1 $5500

Falloch 2020 37.5 X 50 cm Ultrachrome ink on HahnemĂźhle Photo Rag Edition of 5+1 $3300

GlenCoe 2020 100 X 75 cm, Ultrachrome ink on HahnemĂźhle Photo Rag Edition of 5+1 $5500

Kinglass 2020 100 X 37.5 cm Ultrachrome ink on HahnemĂźhle Photo Rag Edition of 5+1 $5500

Muckleflugga 2020 37.5 X 50 cm Ultrachrome ink on HahnemĂźhle Photo Rag Edition of 5+1 $3300

RannochMoor 2020 100 X 37.5 cm Ultrachrome ink on HahnemĂźhle Photo Rag Edition of 5+1 $5500

For all enquies email info@janmantonart.com or call 0419 657 768 All images courtesy of the artist and Jan Manton Gallery.

Gallery Director Jan Manton Gallery Manager Taylor Hall