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Me tacolLaGe

Ra ndY KleiN

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Me tacolLaGe

Randy Klein

4Cumbrian Road, 2009 enamel on aluminium

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IntroductionHedgehog or FoxPeople often ask me if I consider myself a painter or a sculptor. Both, I tell them. But I am also a storyteller. I make paintings and sculptures, but not often as solitary objects. They combine with each other to tell a story. The sculptures overlap and weave through the paintings, forming a kind of collage. And in addition, I make artists’ books, like this slender volume. The book gives a tactile physicality to this layering of diverse methods. We thumb through it, handle and turn pages, and its structure of connected yet separate pages is forgiving of diversity. In the final analysis, we are back to narrative.

This pamphlet is my opportunity to try to explore some questions about what motivates me as an artist, and in the process to celebrate variety, diversity, and art which is difficult to pin down and label.

There is a line among the fragments of the Greek poet Archilochuswhich says: ‘The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.’ Isiah Berlin implies that this might be a division between two basic human types. Those who ‘relate everything to a single central vision’ and ‘those who pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory’.

In art it is generally assumed that one should be a unitary type of thinker, maintaining a consistent ‘position’ in one’s oeuvre, to which all of one’s individual works can be related.

These are the confessions of a fox.

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Anticipation of a Journey, 2009 laser cut steel

Railway Bridge, 2008 enamel on aluminium

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A Train JourneyImagine you are travelling on a train. The carriage is nearly full. A conductor is working his way down the aisle checking tickets. Sitting in a window seat, you look outside and notice snow covered fields racing by. Trees near to the tracks race past, while the distant hills slowly shuffle across the horizon. Seated alongside you is a pleasant middle aged couple, the wife speaking on a mobile phone. Across the aisle, younger passengers busy themselves with ipods and packets of crisps. And beyond them, windows displaying another snowy landscape, from a slightly different angle. This entire scene forms a panorama of visual forms. Some vividly three dimensional, like the passengers in the carriage. The views out the windows seem somehow flattened, with a miniaturized sense of three-dimensionality defined by the varying speeds of the hills, trees, houses and distant sky. This is all very interesting to me as a visual artist, with an interest in creating a representation of physical reality. How to express this scene with the tools of the artist? A closeup of one fellow passenger’s face, in enormous photographic detail? A painting of the distant view out of the train window? A sculptural space which describes the arching space of the interior of the carriage? A still life of snacks, gadgets and magazines on a table? A large sculpture of a snacks trolley? Or maybe all of the above.

A single painting, sculpture, or photograph would simply not capture much of the varying focus we use when taking in a visual scene. Better to overlap, layer, contextualize – use all the tools at your disposal to create something more vivid and representative of the dense reality we experience. Best not to limit the techniques or styles which are allowed.

8Sunset 5, 2009 enamel on aluminium

Sunset 2, 2009 enamel on aluminium

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The SkyThe sunset asserts itself equally through clouds and city buildings, a brilliant reflection in their windows. A hint of the ethereal, of poetry, of the heavenly.

Poetry Angel 3, 2009 enamel on aluminium

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Sunset Trees, 2006 enamel on aluminium

Sea Sunset 1, 2009 enamel on aluminium

11Sunset 5, 2009 enamel on aluminium

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Long Valley, 2006 enamel on aluminium

Hadrians Wall, 2009 enamel on aluminium

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The MountainsA few years ago we rented a house in the hills of Tuscany. We went to stay there whenever we could, taking long walks in all seasons. In the autumn we ate the chestnuts and in the summer the wild mushrooms. Then, this summer, I discovered the Lake District. When I am walking in the mountains. I feel elated. Looking out, hills overlap one another, creating layers of landscape, changing with every turn in your path. The distant peaks become flattened patterns of colour and shape, fading in mist. At the same time a changing point of view emphasizes the sculptural quality of the space I inhabit.They are the patterns of aspiration.

Cumbrian Road, 2009 laser cut steel

14Vertigo, 2009 enamel on aluminium

Palm Springs, 2010 screenprint

15Mountain Man, 2010 enamel on steel

Red Mountain, 2009 enamel on aluminium

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Waterfall, 2009 enamel on aluminium

Ionian Sea, 2009 enamel on aluminium

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The Sea

We took a drive to the south coast, and walked along the seaside across smooth pebbles, making a strange, distant sound. At the end of the pier we looked down to see a brew of deep black and white foam. The churning North Sea created a woven interlacing pattern. Positive and negative shapes changing into one another.It seems only yesterday we were running across hot sand into a very different sea, the Ionian. Calm, azure, inviting. As different as can be imagined, but still fluid and everchanging.

Reflection, 2009 enamel on steel

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North Sea, 2009 enamel on aluminium

Reading on the Beach, 2009 enamel on aluminium

19Stepping out of a Stream, 2009 enamel on steel

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Woman of the Wood, 2009 enamel on steel

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The TreesDescending through the woods we began to argue. The twisted, dense branches we were walking through were our own complex textured relationship. The brittle snapping underfoot echoed our harsh conversation. A solitary tree in a park, standing firm against adversity, defiantly alone. But how social a tree is. How readily it will join with others to form a copse, a wood, a forest. The canopy will become entwined with branches until it is impossible to tell which high branches attach to which roots.

The Gardens, 2007 enamel on aluminium

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Woman of the Wood, 2009 digital print

23Leaf Woman, 2009 enamel on aluminium

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Queensboro Bridge, 2009 screenprint

Magic Rest, 2006 digital print

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The CityWhy include the city in a narrative about natural elements? Because the city is as much a part of our environment as the natural elements. We try to recreate nature in the city, loving our city parks and the trees on our streets. More people live in towns than do on the land, and nature becomes an imaginary place we inhabit only in our minds while our cities become more real.Standing in the countryside, how can we rid ourselves of our city life? We live in the city, we relate to natural elements only through the eyes we have. And these are the eyes of the city. The city is always there. So why fight it? I choose to include the created reality of the city as a mythic element. It informs our dreams as much as the land, sea and sky.

City Man, 2007 enamel on steel

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A New Leaf, 2009 study for public sculpture

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Afterword Art floats above the visual world, adding a layer of metaphor.

Distilled patterns of nature, interlacing with reality. It doesn’t ‘represent’ reality, or replace it. It overlays and

deepens our feelings through visual form.

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©Randy Klein 2010published by Taking Shape Pressinfo@randyklein.co.uk www.randyklein.co.ukRandy Klein is represented by GX Gallery www.gxgallery.comISBN 0-9542951-4-5

Me tacolLaGe