The following is a brief preview - the full content of this page is available to premium users only.
Click here to subscribe...
My first encounter with the concrete jungle is something I will never forget. Faced with all kinds of buildings, people and lifestyles, existing together in a complex system of interdependence, I found myself drowning in the complexity of it all. The constructed environment reflects a lifestyle unlike any other, which is why this diverse range of conflicting parts provides rich and varied subject matter for visual artists. Historical changes, atmosphere and the human presence within the metropolitan environment have provided inspiration for many practitioners. Artists have chosen to document their various reactions and responses to the environment in an assortment of media and approaches, in order to capture this ‘sense of place’. Such artists include Australian born Jeffery Smart, and Callum Morton, who have produced works which focus on the familiar alienation of architecture and of modern materials in our immensely populated conurbations.
This is particularly so for artistic legend Jeffery Smart. Smart’s works reflect his love for structural architecture and ‘the purity in shaped metal and concrete’ (James, 2007). His depictions of the urban environment display ‘the functional exuberance of modern industrial life’ (James, 2007), void of human interaction. In his work Cahill Expressway (1962) we can see his love of structural industrial forms highlighted through the ‘acerbically precise outlines and flat planes of colour’ (James, 2007). The artwork depicts Sydney’s Cahill Expressway tunnel and approach road, with a single man shown at the side of the image. The painting shows the alienation many feel, as I did, when faced with the infrastructure of large freeways, especially when closely juxtaposed with pedestrian scale areas. This technique of using elements of images taken from real places and modifying them so... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline