Previous AA2A Artist

Caroline Underwood

Year:
2009-10
Project summary:

My landscape-inspired artworks represent time spent ‘being in’ nature, rather than places depicted as observed from fixed viewpoints. Landmarks are abstracted, to allow space for each viewer to read into the work their own personal experiences and memories of places and times. The work often develops in series, representing the way we often experience our environment - not standing still, but moving through it. I am fascinated by fractals, and the apparently random but in fact systematic structures found in nature - I often use number systems or geometric forms in the composition of my work, in an attempt to convey this sense of ‘ordered chaos’.

In my studio practice, drawing, painting, and printmaking techniques are combined, and the mark making and decision making process is an instinctive response to the natural tendencies of materials. The outcomes are as much about the material surface as they are a response to my experiences of natural environments. I increasingly use recycled materials in the work.

Via the AA2A scheme I hope to access a wider variety of printmaking processes than those I can undertake in my studio. My aim is to develop a series of mixed-media work that builds on my previous use of grid and systems as a compositional device for expressing my ideas about the meditative effects landscape can have. In 2007 I created a series of mixed-media pieces based on Sudoku, which combined repeated prints with painting to create large-scale abstracted geometric designs. I hope to extend this concept to explore other grids and systems borrowed from everyday contexts.

'Dusk Flight 3'
Spray paint on canvas, from a series of 5 - 50 x 50 cm