I was recently introduced to the work of Tacita Dean and found her work in a volume of Vitamin D in the library, from the start I connected with her notions of landscape and what landscape can be. In her recent exhibition at the Royal Academy she showed a collection of clover leaves, I have since discovered she often collects this notion of collecting nature resonates with myself and my own collecting from the landscape.
I am also interested in her chalkboard drawings, she plays with the ideas of the sublime whilst the piece itself may have deeper meaning such as “The Montafon Letter”. this piece depicts a mountain landscape where an avalanche killed a number of people, I engage with the impermanence of this piece I feel it reflects the idea of human life yet still remains beautiful and romanticizing the landscape. I feel this can relate to my own practice through my interpretations of cliffs that I walk, I often draw referring to memories of my walks, which speak to my personal life with my partner who suffers with memory loss from brain damage.
Tacita Dean also works with rocks from the landscape, here she has used chalkboard paint then printed a photograph of her collected stone onto this surface, it becomes about materiality and real surface along with the depicted surface of a real stone. some of these pieces were bought by a Falmouth art gallery which you may read and article on here.
Her collection of round stones also intrigues me, i find her exhibition of her encounter with landscape similar to my own, she often returns back to Falmouth as I return to the cliffs.
Dean also collects round stones, I can find little reference to this particular collection, although I have found that it is ongoing so perhaps we shall see more of these stones in the future.
Dean has always used chemical film and has now expanded into making film instillation, in the film below she discussed her latest work at the royal academy, and it’s origins. I believe that her use of film will be useful to me as I try to further my own film making.