TRANSCENDENTAL
TRANQUILITY
//OCT 27 - JAN 07//
//NF ART GALLERY//
//KNOKKE//
FADING MEMORIES
"As time goes by memories fade away. What once was sharp, crisp and vivid in our minds, gets blurred. Shapes and colours disappear. No matter how hard we fight. Bits and pieces are gone to never come back.
With Fading Memories I try to visualise this feeling of losing the details. Time has been put to a stop. Details are gone. The images take on a dreamlike surreal atmosphere.
But even the most fragile memory can bring back the whole story. And most of the time, we will remember what is forgotten more beautiful - if
it was tough or hard, softer - than it really was. It's what we do. It's how we survive.
In Fading Memories, I know the story behind the image. The place. The time. The people. You don't. Thanks to what you don't see, the images suggest more open stories than the ones I know. More open stories than they would do if the images were intact. So your mind will create your own story. Immediately. Don't stop it. Have Fading Memories challenge your imagination."
About Transcendental Tranquility
About 超越的静寂
Interview by Sarah J LLoyd
Finish and dimensions
About UKIYO
TRANSCENDENTAL
TRANQUILITY
"I call him the Rothko of photography. Dirk Roseport's works are as much photograph as painting. They are Rothkosian tableaux, intriguing and infinitely layered, inviting an almost meditative experience."
Harry Tupan - Director Drents Museum
With Transcendental Tranquility // Oceans Project I make a contemporary reference to a romantic tradition within painting: that of the artist/photographer shunning the turbulence of the 21st century.
I retreat into the vastness of nature, distancing myself from the passage of time. I become a powerless observer of the uncontrollable elements.
In Transcendental Tranquility // Oceans Project there is only light, the horizon, and the eternally moving water; the observation is distilled to the essence.
Throughout the years Transcendental Tranquility // Oceans Project has become an essentially endless series of unique, emotionally charged images.
The sequential placement in a series and the repetitive nature of the composition - water and sky sliced in half by the horizon - evoke an almost meditative state.
The deliberately centralised placement of the horizon(tal line), which is an elemental component of the composition in many of the images, simultaneously imposes and deconstructs any form of hierarchy and
convention within photography and in the way it is viewed.
Subtle changes in colour and hue separate the sea from the sky and abstract the transition between the two. The layered, intriguing images exude a deceptive silence. They invite repeated viewing, in which the observer drowns and obtains a sense of peace that is so often lacking in our modern lives.
This is how Transcendental Tranquilty balances on the intersection of photography, painting, and film in terms of subject, layering, and development.
Alienation techniques, repetitiveness, and uncontrolled motion blur create a twilight that allows room for reflection and interpretation. Moments frozen in time, which start to move again the longer you look, as if it were a movie, creating a new reality.
In times of unbridled manipulation of images, I resolutely vow to maintain the authenticity of untouched images, which I print on Hahnemühle high-quality, extra smooth paper in order to create exceptional density, sharpness, colour saturation, and depth of colour in the images.
Dirk Roseport’s beelden refereren op een hedendaagse manier aan een romantische traditie binnen de schilderkunst: de kunstenaar-fotograaf keert de rug naar de woelige context van deze 21ste eeuw. Hij trekt zich terug in de uitgestrektheid van de natuur en neemt afstand van de tijd, kijkt met bewondering naar het desolate en onmeetbare van anonieme oceanen. Hij is machteloos toeschouwer van de oncontroleerbare elementen die hij documenteert. Er zijn alleen het licht, de horizon en het altijd in beweging zijnde water; de waarneming teruggebracht tot de basiselementen, gedistilleerd tot de essentie. Nu eens kalm en bevreemdend uitnodigend, une mer d’huile. Soms een rimpeling, subtiel, haast onzichtbaar. Dan weer oorverdovend en dreigend, maar altijd in beweging en steeds uniek.
Van wat doorheen de afgelopen jaren is verworden tot een in essentie eindeloze reeks van unieke, emotioneel geladen beelden, elk op zich een momentopname van een steeds wijzigend zeelandschap, toont Roseport hier slechts een kleine selectie. Het sequentiële plaatsen in een reeks en het repetitieve karakter van de beeldcompositie – water en lucht doorsneden door de horizon – nodigen uit tot een haast meditatieve beleving, verwant aan deze van de fotograaf op het moment van de opname.
Het bewust centraal plaatsen van de horizon(-tale lijn), elementair onderdeel in de compositie van vele van de getoonde beelden, structureert en bevrijdt tezelfdertijd van elke vorm van hiërarchie en conventie binnen de fotografie en het kijken daarnaar. Subtiele schakeringen in kleur en tint onderscheiden zee van lucht en andersom, en abstraheren de overgang tussen beiden. Dirk Roseport’s beelden ademen een bedrieglijke stilte, zijn gelaagd en intrigerend. Zij nodigen uit er herhaaldelijk naar te kijken, erin te verdrinken en een rust terug te vinden waaraan het ons vandaag zo vaak ontbreekt.
Transcendental Tranquility balanceert daarmee in onderwerp, gelaagdheid en uitwerking op het raakvlak tussen fotografie, schilderkunst en film. Technieken van vervreemding, repetitie en ongecontroleerde bewegingsonscherpte creëren een schemerzone die ruimte laat voor reflectie en interpretatie. Momentopnames die wanneer je er langer naar kijkt weer opstarten, als een film en een nieuwe realiteit creëren.
In tijden van ongebreidelde beeldmanipulatie zweert Roseport hardnekkig bij de authenticiteit van niet-bewerkte beelden, die hij afdrukt op hoogkwalitatief papier van Hahnemühle met een extra gladde oppervlaktetextuur voor een uitzonderlijke densiteit, beeldscherpte, kleurbereik en -diepte.
Kim Poorters
Dirk Roseport（ディレク・ローズポート）の被写体の多くは海、オーシャン。
「Transcendental Tranquility - オーシャンズ・プロジェクト」では、絵画の空想的な描写を現代的に表現している：それこそが、21世紀の混乱とは無縁なアーティスト/写真家の表現。
海の自然な営みの中から、一瞬の輝きを切り取る。作品で捉えるのは水、地平線、空の観察描写ではない。
作品が生み出す疎外感は、己を見つめ直し、理解させる未知の空間を作る。それは心地よく、同時にとらえどころがなく、無心に瞑想させる。
海はもはや海ではなく、Rothkosian カラーが印象的なものとなる。見せたいものは海ではない。それは、悩みや精神的な苦痛を取り払い、安らぎを感じるシーン。
作品は無力感と同時に開放感を創出させる。見つめる度に違って見える。常に新たな現実が作られる。
連続的な配置と繰り返される構成 - 水と空が地平線で半分にスライスされる - それが瞑想的な状態を呼び起こす。
水平線を中央に配置する基本構成は、写真のグラデーションと伝統的な表現を同時に捉え、分析させ、見え方を変える。
色と色合いの微妙な変化で空と海を区別し、その遷移を抽象的に表現される。層状の興味深い画像は、見る人を引き込み、現代社会に欠けている安らぎが得られる沈黙を醸し出す。そうして、過剰な刺激の多い現代社会でも落ち着きを取り戻し、穏やかな瞬間が得られる。
何年もかけて発表されてきた Transcendental Tranquility は、ユニークで終わりのない、感情をかき立てる画像シリーズとなった。
被写体の選択、層構造、制作により、Transcendental Tranquility は、写真、絵画、映像が調和する。
画像が自由に操作できること、および被写体が変化することを前提に、ローズポートは、このプロジェクトの画像は一切編集されていない本物であることを証明する。作品が見せるのは、撮影の瞬間にカメラが捉えた情景。
ローズポートは、ベルギー、イギリス、アメリカ、スペイン、イタリア、フランスの海を撮影し、2015年から Transcendental Tranquility に取り組んでいる。プロジェクトでは、定期的に新しい画像が紹介されている。
Interview by Sarah J LLoyd for the Hastings Independent // 06-'17
SJL: Dirk, can I ask you to say something first about what is important to you as an artist, and what you would like people to know about the work?
DR: I’m always surfing the edge between photography and painting. My concern is with creating the tableau, before which people can encounter rhythms of reality. Many people say that the work creates a space where they lose themselves, where their stress drops away and they deeply relax. And that is a strong reason why I make this work also, because this is what happens to me in the process of making it. I get up at crazy hours to do shoots, like 4am in the dark of December in bad weather, and then get totally absorbed in the process of attending to the moments where the work appears, four, six hours can go by like ten minutes in this, and I suddenly realise I've completely disappeared into the making process.
SJL: So it sounds almost similar to the centering, absorption process that happens in meditation. Why ocean though, what is water for you, and why do you think water and sky are so compelling for you as an artist?
DR: I think it's that thing that we come from the water, so somehow it’s a way to return to this deeper state. Taking everything superfluous out is for me the basis of good design, and it returns me to this simpler state in myself. So I strip the making process back to three elements; sky, water, horizon. The immensity of sky and water seems to generate states of calm where what feels troublesome in the psyche drops away. Then interestingly later, after the slowness, we start projecting thoughts onto the tableau again. Our brains seem to tolerate only so much emptiness, before they push to return us to something familiar, and this is often when the water seems to move again, especially in the “Turmoil” pieces, where the horizon is lost and there is only reflected light. It's really fascinating how many people have this response. And I’m not trying to steer anyone in any particular direction.
SJL: I looked at all the work on your website last night, and found myself thinking also of Vija Celmins, Mark Rothko and Agnes Martin, all artists very concerned with inner life. Martin especially described in detail this stripping back of self when she went to draw in the desert. She too was dealing with awe and absorption in immensity, and what happens to our sense of relationality next to that, but she chose barren, dry desert to lose herself in and a strong buddhist meditation practice. It’s interesting that for you it’s water and more an absorption in the active making.
DR: I’m not a professor so I don’t try to explain everything, but I think everyone of us is attracted to water. So sea, horizon and sky comes out of this need I have to strip things back to essential elements and return myself to a sense of origin.
SJL: And why do you choose the particular locations?
DR: I research obviously the light and whether there is a harbour or an island nearby, because then there are just too many ships. But more than that, the location is not really the point.
SJL: So you are saying that the point is more this access to inner life, to the interiority of yourself in the presence of immense landscapes.
DR: Yes and I use the camera as a completely experimental tool there, breaking every rule there is about light and exposure technicalities, because if I was concerned with all that, I would be shooting postcards. But working in this very open intuitive way, everything is unique each time, it’s a consequence of being in a living relationship with materiality, I am not trying to capture it.
SJL: Yes that’s so interesting, I can really hear that, and I see that location would be completely irrelevant if your concern is with this much more fluid and painterly territory on the edges of perception. Thank you so much for your time today Dirk.
Finish and dimensions
Transcendental Tranquility comes printed on high quality Photo Rag Ultra Smooth from Hahnemühle, an extra white 100% cotton-based paper with an extreme soft surface, guaranteeing archival standards.
I chose this paper after careful selection because, with its premium matt ink coating, it meets the highest
Hahnemühle Photo Rag Ultra Smooth
30X45cm - edition of 7 (black wooden frame)
50X75cm - edition of 7 (black wooden frame)
75X150cm - edition of 5 (mounted on dibond)*
100X150cm - edition of 5 (mounted on dibond)
150X150cm - edition of 3* (mounted on dibond)*
150X225cm - edition of 3* (mounted on dibond)**
*limited selection of artworks
**limited selection also available as triptyc
industry standards regarding density, color gamut, color graduation and image sharpness, while preserving that very special touch and feel of genuine paper.
All these characteristics help every print to show an impressive depth of color, subtle gradients and unique softness.
UKIYO
One work consisting of 3 panels 75X150cm. - Editions: 9.
Printed on archival quality Platine Fibre Rag 310g by Hahnemühle, mounted on 3mm Dibond and finished with 3mm Diasec.
UKIYO - literally means "floating world" and describes the moment and feeling when you think of nothing, live "in the moment", detached from the difficulties of life and experience a sense of total relaxation.
I already put offering this "experience" at the heart of my
Transcendental Tranquility project. UKIYO is a further exploration in the pursuit of this experience.
Whereas in Transcendental Tranquility the works show exactly what the camera captures at the moment of shooting - without any post-production - in UKIYO I use the camera physically to "paint" the tableau. In further post-processing, graphic notes are added to the work, inspired by the Japanese Floating World Picture art form (mid-18th century).