I am fascinated with the effect that size has on how you experience a painting. It seems like very wide vistas work well on very small canvasses, while close immersive paintings work well on a very large scale, because you physically feel to be inside of them. For the small paintings, it feels more like a window, where you need to come over and take a closer look.
Well, for this painting I want to create the feeling of being right inside an autumn /winter forest scene, where the tree trunks are really up close. And I was thinking: what is the largest I could do inside my studio? Well, my studio, which is actually a metal container, has a long and a short wall. So, I decided to just pin a long canvas along the longer wall of around 3 meters wide. The only issue was that I couldn’t take any distance of more than 2 meters away from the canvas. I know this is not ideal, but sometimes I like to challenge existing ideas, even if I know better.
I wanted to see whether I could just focus on separate parts during each painting session, and that in the end it would come together. And, of course, I had designed the composition on a smaller study. So I knew that the painting could work as a whole.
In reality, it also seemed to work up to a certain point. I took a picture now and then, and the overall work was moving in the direction I wanted, and also when viewed up close, it was moving forward. However, at mid-distance, let’s say a few meters, my insecurities were growing, and I noticed I really wanted to step away further, or take the painting outside my studio to observe it in a different light. But, the painting was too large to fit through the entrance of the studio. Plus, I didn’t have it stretched, which makes it difficult as well. So, something had to be done.
I gave it a bit of thought and decided to cut the canvas into two, and stretch them onto stretcher bars.
I decided to turn them into slightly unequal parts. Right now the right part is a little bit wider than the left. I chose these dimensions, so that both paintings could also work separately. So, this solves the problems I encountered, because I can now easily move both paintings wherever I want, plus I can position them in the long direction of the studio and take approximately 5 meters distance away from the canvas.
And, now that I have 2 paintings, will they remain as a diptych? Or will I treat them as separate works? I guess time will tell! But it shows that sometimes you need to make a sacrifice to move forward. This, however, is a turn I did not expect when I started this work.
