喬治．伯恩：色彩場域
George Byrne: COLOR FIELD

藝術家 Artist | 喬治．伯恩 George Byrne
展期 Duration | November 5, 2021 – January 16, 2022
線上展間 | https://onlineviewingroom.com/exhibition/EVGVPFET1DIX/
*此展覽為線上展出形式 Online Exclusive Exhibition

喬治．伯恩（George Byrne）和他的圖像煉金術

文 ︳嚴瀟瀟

於城市景觀中捕捉近乎幾何抽象般的色彩片斷，是定居洛杉磯的澳洲藝術家喬治．伯恩（George Byrne）典型的攝影母題，他描述自己花費大量的時間慢慢開車遊蕩在街頭巷尾，只為找尋加州天光下「不飽和的色彩和不起眼的低矮建築」。而透過不斷創作出表現色彩、光影、線條、形狀、材料等元素之間互動關係的作品，他所實踐的是一種被其稱為「煉金術」的圖像構建實驗。

受過完整藝術學院教育的伯恩，以其對藝術史的熟稔與美學敏感，不著痕跡地結合了攝影的直觀與繪畫的肌理與層次；同時也受上個世紀後半葉美國的「新地景攝影」（New Topographics）運動所影響。當他確立以攝影為主要創作媒介後，更以數位拼貼這樣尤具時代性的手法來創作。其作品中的日常片斷，並非完全來自某個結合了光影與街景的瞬間，而是會在現實所見之基礎上，畫龍點睛般加入從其他風景中挪移來的元素，或是如其在近年的創作系列「後真實」（Post Truth）中那樣，選擇其所蒐集到的色彩與形狀進行再利用與再創造，以內部縫合的方式完成美學風格統一的拼貼作品。這種創作手法上的選擇，是出於對「創作圖像」這件事、而非僅僅是拍攝的興趣，對他而言，這些攝影作品「既是觀察所得，也是創造之物──它們基於真實，卻也擁抱開放性詮釋」。由此，伯恩成功接合了不同的視覺藝術媒材及其各自的藝術史脈絡，勾畫出超越現實的美感經驗，並進一步回應了以社群化、片斷化的視覺文化為重要特徵的當代社會。

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George Byrne: COLOR FIELD

Artist | George Byrne
Duration | November 5, 2021 – January 16, 2022
Online Viewing Room | https://onlineviewingroom.com/exhibition/EVGVPFET1DIX/
*Online Exclusive Exhibition

George Byrne and His Image Alchemy
Article by Yan Xiao-Xiao

Geometric-like abstract color fragments of urban landscape are typical motifs in the works of George Byrne, an Australian photographic artist based in Los Angeles. He describes the huge amount of time he spends cruising through streets and alleys just to find the "unsaturated colors and inconspicuous low-rise buildings" under the Californian sky. Through his prolific creations that manifest the interaction of elements such as colors, light and shadow, lines, shapes, and materials, Byrne practices a kind of image construction experiment called "alchemy".

Byrne, who has received a complete art school education, is familiar with art history and sensitive to aesthetics. He seamlessly combines the intuition of photography with the texture and layers in painting. At the same time, he is also influenced by the New Topographics movement in the United States during the second half of the last century.

After having established photography as his main creative medium, he even uses contemporary digital collage to create his works. The daily fragments found in his works are not entirely from a moment that combines light and shadow with street scenes. Rather, they are built on what is seen in reality and embellished with elements borrowed from other landscapes. The colors and shapes may also be borrowed from those he collected and be reused, recreated, and to complete a unified aesthetic collage through an internal stitching method, which is like his recent series, “Post Truth”. This choice of creative technique stems from his interest in "creating images" rather than just shooting photos.

For Byrne, these photographic works are "both the outcome of observation and creation - they are based on what is real but also embrace open interpretation." As a result, Byrne successfully combines different visual art media and their respective art history contexts to create an aesthetic experience that transcends reality and goes even further to reflect a contemporary society that is characterized by socialized and fragmented visual culture.

REFERENCE

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George Byrne: COLOR FIELD