As Simple As A Flower
8” x 10”
Paper Collage on Canvas
London, Ontario
April 2015
Jim Kogelheide
My wife and I spent five years traveling across Canada
working on a very special and unique art project entitled Canada: Glorious ToBe. When we moved to a new province, I
would challenge myself to use new mediums to create my artwork. In Nova Scotia, I created several art works
using stones and rocks as my mediums. I
became known as a rock painter! I didn’t
paint rocks… I created paintings using rocks!
In
British Columbia, I created many new and exciting needlepoint artworks –
creating my own stitch patterns as well as colour blending techniques. While living in Manitoba, I dabbled in paper
collage. I would cut up magazines into
very small bits and then I would glue them (thousands of small bits of paper)
onto a board to create an image.
Here's a quick link to one of my earliest paper collage artworks.
I
really enjoyed this particular art form, but the one draw back was the fact
that my finished artworks needed to be framed behind glass in order to display
it and this is a rather costly procedure.
In
the early part of 2015, I had a flash of inspiration! I began to wonder if I could glue magazine
bits directly onto a stretched canvas and soon I began to experiment with a new
way for creating art. The magazine paper
bits did glue to the canvas very easily, so that was good news for me. My next line of questioning had me wondering
how I could protect the final images now that I wouldn’t be framing them behind
glass.
It
took several attempts until I had found a paintable varnish that I liked
working with. The varnish gave the
artwork a thin layer of protection against the UV rays from the sun and it
ensured that the bits of magazine paper didn’t lift up.
As Simple
As A Flower is my first completed artwork using all of these new… and old…
techniques.
This
art is based on a photograph of several Day Lilies that grew in my garden. I love taking interesting photos of all of my
flowers so that I can share the images and inspire people to realize how
magical and colourful Nature is.
While
creating my composition, I followed some very simple rules meant to create the
illusion of ‘depth of field’ – a term associated more with photography. The illusion is meant to mimic reality. The flower in the foreground is very brightly
coloured with lots of detail. To make
the second flower appear to be further away, I use less detail and fewer
colours.
In
this artwork, I created the second flower using only 7 different colours and
you can see that things like the flower’s staymens aren’t visible. The third – and most distant – flower was
created using only 3 colours and you can easily see that there is very little
detail in this rendering.
Last
year, I created several other artworks using these techniques and I find it
interesting that this artwork – which was the first and the smallest – is
actually my favourite one. When I am
looking at it from across a room, it just makes me feel good! From a bit of distance, it looks almost like
a photograph and I find this very interesting.
The
title for this artwork came from the lyrics of an 80’s rock band called Love
and Rockets. The song is ‘No New Tale ToTell’ off of their ‘Earth, Moon and Sun’ album and a few of the lyrics are,
“Our little lives get complicated, and that’s a simple thing. As simple as a flower, and that’s a
complicated thing!”
I’ve
always believed that once a person has been able to appreciate the fact that
Nature seems so simple – at first glance – but is in fact a deeply complicated
and somewhat magical manifestation that one’s mind can grow to respect all that
one does not know. Accepting one’s own
ignorance is a vital step in our evolution as we become humble in the presence
of wonder. I believe that a humbled
spirit is an appreciative soul and it’s hearts and minds of this nature that
are needed to further humanities journey into the future.
Jim Kogelheide
August 2016
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