Shannon SmileyAustralian landscape painter

Helen Nodding, Artist Talk: Key Stage 3 students at Arthur Terry School, Birmingham

Topics that this presentation will cover

• Background history• Definitions• What art historical terms can we use to describe the work?• Subject matter • Influences• Research methods and source material• Technique• Colour and tone• What does the artwork make us think and feel?

Background History

• Shannon Smiley was born in Melbourne, Australia, 1977

• Artist StatementThe Australian suburban environment is for me a place where an enchanted subject can be found. In the overlooked and undefined spaces without purpose or function, a wilderness grows with an urgent will to live

Definitions

• UrbanReferring to a city or town

• SuburbanThe district or area just outside of a city or town

• WildernessA wild, uncultivated region or area of wasteland

Whilst this images may look very much like photographs to you, they are in fact all oil paintings.From what the artist has told us in his statement we know that his paintings show areas of wilderness around the city in which he lives.

The artist wants to draw our attention to the overgrown weeds and nature in his everyday environment and he spends an enormous amount of time painting this subject in great detail.

The artist gives us hints that we are in the urban/suburban environment by including evidence of human life, such as man-made structures or graffiti.

We are reminded that we are not out in the Australian bush here, but still very close to the city.

What art historical words can we use to describe the work?

• Landscape painting• Oil paint on canvas• Representational art

The word "representational," when used to describe a work of art, means that the work depicts something easily recognized by most people

Subject matter

• The Australian urban/suburban landscape• Nature in the city• The beauty that lies within overlooked areas of

our everyday environment• Draws focus upon and celebrates aspects of the

city that usually go ignored, for example weeds

The artists shows us the ways in which nature can inspire us or make us feel

Oil painting is traditionally seen as a medium that depicts very important subject matter. Think about how the artist uses the same medium to celebrate and glorify something as humble and unwelcome as a weed.

Through the work the artist also suggests that life in the city has distanced us from nature. Before we had gadgets like clocks and i-phones to tell us the time and date, we once relied upon nature to give us our life rhythm’s (through the changing seasons).

In this painting we see how nature is starting to take over the buildings of the city. Whilst we may have

distanced ourselves from nature, it is always ready and waiting to takeover again.!

Can you see the subtle outline of a bridge in the background of this painting? It reminds us that we are not in the wild Australian Bush but still close to human civilisation, near to the city.

InfluencesWhich artists or art movements

inspire Shannon Smiley?

The Romantic Movement

• This was a movement in art and literature of the late 18th and early-19th centuries that emphasised personal experience, feeling and emotion, particularly in response to nature

Caspar David Friedrich, 1774-1840

Frederick McCubbin (1855-1917) John Constable (1776-1837)

Salvator Rosa (1615-1673)JMW Turner (1775-1851)

Art Historical Influences

Romantic landscape tradition

• Shannon Smiley is inspired by romantic artists from the past because of the ways in which they saw beauty in nature and dealt with the subject of man’s relationship to the natural landscape.

• These artists were able to show us how the landscape can stimulate us and effect our moods and emotions.

The landscape in contemporary art

• Like the Romantic painters of the past, many contemporary artists working in the landscape tradition emphasise personal experience, feeling and emotion, particularly in response to city life and urban nature

Hisaharu Motoda, b.1973

George Shaw

Contemporary Influences

George Shaw• George Shaw is a contemporary painter (from Coventry,

UK). He paints very mundane (or ordinary) scenes from the suburbs in which he grew up, to create a mood and interest in the everyday.

• Rather magically, he somehow makes the everyday seem mysterious. When you look at the works you get the feeling that something might be about to happen, or perhaps they are showing a crime scene, or places that hold a symbolic significance for him.

• By drawing attention to familiar scenes that we often walk past without thinking about, George Shaw is able to make us re-examine and think about the significance of the landscape of our everyday world.

Contemporary Influences

Sam Leach

Sam Leach

• The paintings of Sam Leach often refer to historical, classical landscape painting which he overlays with futuristic scenes, by adding artificial and constructed layers on to them.

• Sam Leach links Science with Art to make us think about environmental issues, and forces us to question what our future landscapes might look like.

• Leach sees his paintings as being artificial landscapes of times to come. He projects an optimistic side to the future, where technology and mankind can work in harmony with the environment.

Research Methods and Source Material

How or where does Shannon Smiley find inspiration for his

paintings?

Research Method• Walking

The artist takes regular walks around the city and its suburbs, looking for inspiration in the overgrown nature and areas of wilderness that he finds

• PhotographyThe artist takes photos of any scenes that he finds interesting. Taking hundreds of photographs he goes through a rigorous selection process to decide which ones will make a compositionally successful painting

Source material

TechniqueHow does the artist turn his photographs into paintings?

Technique• Using a grid is a good way to make a drawing from a photograph• It means you can accurately copy an image section by section

more simply than sketching it by freehand

TechniqueDürer’s Grid• The grid device was made famous by 16th artist Albrecht Dürer and

versions of it have been used since by many artists including Leonardo da Vinci, Jan Vermeer and Vincent van Gogh

• In “Dürer’s Grid” the artist looks through the frame and copies the outlines of what he sees onto a piece of paper with a similar grid marked on it

Technique• Preparing to paint

Before he starts painting the artist, Shannon Smiley, divides his chosen photograph into a grid using a pencil and ruler. He then draws a bigger version of this grid onto his canvas, ensuring that it has the same number of squares as the grid on the photograph

Technique• Painting

The artist then works square by square to copy and enlarge the original image. He builds up the paint in layers until he is happy with the final painting

• The artist uses the grid to accurately transfer visual information from the photograph to the canvas, square by square.

• He builds up the paint in each square layer by layer to add depth, contrast and detail.

Colour and Tone

The colour wheel• On first inspection you may think that the Shannon Smiley’s

palette largely consists of the colour green• However, when we place one of his paintings next to the

colour wheel, we can see that the artist has used a range of colours to create the work

Tone• Warm colours and cool colours

The artist uses lots of shades of green, but how does he create a sense of light and shadow?

He mixes cool colours with green when the leaves are in shadow

He mixes warm colours with green when the leaves are in the sunlightw

arm

col

ours

cool

col

ours

Contrast• When colours opposite to each other on the colour wheel are used next to

each other they create contrast. Contrast can help to create a mood or atmosphere within a painting

• Here we can see that the artist has used warmer colours in areas where the light falls and their opposite cooler colours in areas of shadow

Contrast

cool colours for shaded

areas

warm colours for sunlit areas

• Through a subtle use of colour and tone we can create a mood or atmosphere within our paintings

• By paying attention to the things that we often walk by and ignore, we can find beauty and inspiration for artwork almost anywhere!

Things to think about

• What do you think that the artist wants to make us think and feel about the overgrown nature in and around our cities?

• Why does he dedicate so much time and care to show us a side of the city that many people don’t notice, or even see in a negative light?

Artist StatementThe Australian suburban environment is for me a place where an enchanted subject can be found. In the overlooked and undefined spaces without purpose or function, a wilderness grows with an urgent will to live.

Task• When you are walking to school, the shops, or are out and about in the

city, keep your eye open for any signs of nature or wilderness in your everyday environment (perhaps a weed growing through a crack in the concrete)

• Take a photo (you could even use the camera on your phone if it has one). Think about the composition of the image and how it might look as a painting. You might take several photos and choose the one that you think will work best as a painting; ask your teacher for some advice

• Print out your image and use the grid technique to enlarge it onto a piece of cartridge paper (your teacher will show you how)

• Think about the tone and colours that you use to create the painting. Also consider how contrast can help to develop the atmosphere or mood of the artwork