vancouver_arts

Voidscape 2

| Nat Rad

Exploring compositions to reveal the landscape, I began with video work in 2023.

The subject is a landscape area of boulders on the north side of MT Clarence, Albany. The composition investigates the identity of this space through transparency and overlay of site images. Revealing the landscape’s features, including the ‘unseen spaces’, voids.

The second installment for 2025 of ‘Voidscape’ brings together video, soundscape and oil on canvas paintings, connecting the forms of the landscape through all media.

The term “Voidscape” is derived from digital creation and refers to other worlds outside of physical representation.

100 Chawan: completed soundscape

| Nat Rad

The soundscape for the 100 Chawan exhibition is a compilation of 6 parts, representing elements identified by Linda Chambers and Collyn Gawned as significant to their art practice.

Being invited to create a soundscape and directed by Linda and Collyn‘s strong vision for the completed ceramic works to be underpinned by the ‘feel’ of the exhibition space, I began with recording in their studios.

  • Introduction: Chanting, Frogs, water and Night Chitty Chitty
  • Linda Making: electric potters wheel recorded in her home studio
  • Tea: preparing to make tea, chanting and whisking matcha
  • Travels in Japan: Hiroshima peace bell, poring tea and Osaka train station
  • Collyn Making: hand making a Chawan recorded in his home studio
  • Mediation on flow: Tapping on Chawan, waters of Lake St Clair, Torbay, Hopetoun and Ledge Point with breath

Hand building a chawan

| Nat Rad

Part 5 ‘Collyn Making’ – Collyn moves around his space with an enquiring mind. A work always in progress. The music he plays (reversed in my editing) the different wind chimes, the water dripping off his roof to be collected in a bucket, the patting and forming of a chawan. Linda whisks matcha (Green tea) at the end of our session. I looked for a flow in editing the sound into a form to end with the breath and relief at the end of creating.

Voidscape 2.0

| Nat Rad

Translating from a video still, these works represent the complexity of layering sensations into one space. The images below begin with the still and documents the layering of paint to the final work

Voidscape 1.1 Oil & red gum resin on canvas 410 x 510 $850

Voidscape 1.1 Oil & red gum resin on canvas 410 x 510 $850

Voidscape

| Nat Rad

Voidscape 1.2 Oil on canvas 41cm wide x 51cm high $850

More Voidscape works in progress.

Transparency of image interaction.

After making a short film with soundscape earlier in the year, I am now looking to translate a couple stills into paintings. Documentation of process.

Translation

| Nat Rad
“Katrine Summer” Oil on canvas 46cm wide x 30cm high $650

I feel a process is emerging.

The first small study concentrated on blocking in areas with charcole in a loose way, underpainting in complementaries then final layer with body added to the paint.

To translate a work into a larger format, I found the muscle memory of the composition stronger.

“This work is taken from 2023, a day painting at Katrine, outside Toodyay, WA. Behind the farm stay a hill of golden wheat was being harvested over the days, imprinting the landscape with lines. A November sun blurred the vision by day but at dusk the mauves combined with a softer yellow. I wanted to work in a freer fashion after again working with stencils on the project before. This work focused on colour, line and texture as I tried a new paint thickener.

Creative Pathways collaboration with ASHS students and the Vancouver Arts Centre

| Nat Rad
ASHS student recordings of the school today pared with archive images of school.

Through developing a project from begining to end, the ASHS students decided to record the sound bytes of their school lives. Setting them loose with a letter giving permission to use their phones to record, they scattered and returned to me with sounds I would never have though of!

A school clock ticking, the canteen microwave, drinking out of the water fountain and pumping up the balls in phys ed. They also recorded interviews with their peers from a set of questions developed by the students for both present and past students.

I got to edit the sound bytes into a whole and pair with the archive images.

Truely it was so much fun working with their ideas….. check it out!