Art in the Open Philadelphia : Michael Bartmann

Michael Bartmann

Philadelphia, PA

http://www.michaelbartmann.com/

"That was the chief difference between Olmsted and the other architects. They wanted to create order out of chaos. He wanted to accomodate order and chaos."

Witold Rybcynski, A Clearing in the Distance, referring to Fredrick Law Olmsted, designer of Central Park

This accommmodation by Olmsted toward the exterior environment is something I strive for in my artwork, through style, subject matter, and process. In many ways, my background as a landscape architect has consistently influenced my approach to painting. As a designer, one must simultaneously think in two and three dimensions: the two-dimensional world of the drafted blue print is needed to communicate with colleagues, engineers, and builders. But to the lay person, architectural plans seem abstract-just lines and shapes on a flat surface. Therefore the designer turns to the three-dimensional illusion of the rendered perspective to communicate the ideas to the client. Ultimately, what begins as seemingly abstract marks on paper results in a real physical environment that people can walk through and experience. The designer is completely comfortable traveling back and forth between the two worlds. As a painter, I try to subtly combine the two and three-dimensional worlds into one coherent image. I keep one foot in the flat world of the canvas and the other in the illusionary one. Just as I did as a designer, I naturally do as a painter: the drafted blue print becomes the canvas, the flat architectural lines, the painted mark-both passages to the illusion of space. The viewer is greeted by the linear and planer qualities of the canvas while at the same time, invited into the three-dimensional illusion of space.

IMAGE: Beckon, 2010, oil

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