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拍品专文
Meticulously rendered on a hyper-realist style, Jonathan Wateridge's Jungle Scene with Plane Wreck presents us with a dramatic image of an apocalyptic world. Painted in 2007, the mesmerising work is the last of his seven critically acclaimed theatrical and large-scale 'crash series' which depict crashed planes and ships rusting away in fictional landscapes. Standing over two metres tall and four metres wide, the dramatic work envelops viewers and forces their engagement, inviting them to step into a natural wilderness that is derived from zoological habitats, the painted backdrops seen in museum displays and particularly Hollywood films. The Jurassic-park like, prehistoric jungle seems at odds with the modern technology of the overgrown plane wreck, and this creates an ambiguity to which Wateridge does not provide answers. Creating a hermetic, fictional world reminiscent of the cinema, Wateridge enables viewers to create their own conclusions to the scene before them.
In order to paint Jungle Scene with Plane Wreck, Wateridge produced a diorama complete with props before making any marks on the canvas. In a playful echo of film making, he entered the skin of a movie director, building a scale-model of the plane and wrecking it in order to work directly from the miniature in a manner that is reminiscent of the practice of photographer Thomas Demand. Wateridge painstakingly builds his models in great detail, and this is reflected in the realism of the landscape for which he has previously mapped out the tiniest flicker of light or hint of shadow serving to provide a gateway into another world. By rearranging the model, he is able to play with the composition, directing its final format as in cinematography. As the artist once affirmed, 'it's essentially B-movie aesthetics meets the sublime' (J. Wateridge quoted in P. Ellis (ed.), Newspeak: British Art Now, exh. cat., Saatchi Gallery, London 2009-2010), brilliantly linking the art historical tradition of landscape with the very modern interest in dramatic cinema.
Learning that nothing in any of Wateridge's paintings exists outside of the studio space radically affects viewers' readings of them. The highly realistic painting draws viewers in and once you have established a genuine, though uncanny, relationship with the scene depicted he disrupts it with subtle dislocations. As Wateridge has concluded, his paintings are 'elaborate fictions with visible seams' (J. Wateridge quoted in P. Ellis (ed.), Newspeak: British Art Now, exh. cat., Saatchi Gallery, London 2009-2010).
In order to paint Jungle Scene with Plane Wreck, Wateridge produced a diorama complete with props before making any marks on the canvas. In a playful echo of film making, he entered the skin of a movie director, building a scale-model of the plane and wrecking it in order to work directly from the miniature in a manner that is reminiscent of the practice of photographer Thomas Demand. Wateridge painstakingly builds his models in great detail, and this is reflected in the realism of the landscape for which he has previously mapped out the tiniest flicker of light or hint of shadow serving to provide a gateway into another world. By rearranging the model, he is able to play with the composition, directing its final format as in cinematography. As the artist once affirmed, 'it's essentially B-movie aesthetics meets the sublime' (J. Wateridge quoted in P. Ellis (ed.), Newspeak: British Art Now, exh. cat., Saatchi Gallery, London 2009-2010), brilliantly linking the art historical tradition of landscape with the very modern interest in dramatic cinema.
Learning that nothing in any of Wateridge's paintings exists outside of the studio space radically affects viewers' readings of them. The highly realistic painting draws viewers in and once you have established a genuine, though uncanny, relationship with the scene depicted he disrupts it with subtle dislocations. As Wateridge has concluded, his paintings are 'elaborate fictions with visible seams' (J. Wateridge quoted in P. Ellis (ed.), Newspeak: British Art Now, exh. cat., Saatchi Gallery, London 2009-2010).