US Landscapes, Transformation of Photo Murals – T1, Mount Shuksan / 2008
acrylic on canvas, 127 x 98 mm
US Landscapes, Transformation of Photo Murals – T1, Monument Valley & Grand Canyon / 2008
acrylic on canvas, 127 x 98 mm each
US Landscapes, Transformation of Photo Murals – T2 / 2009
software - click here for the video version

Photo mural wallpaper is not as fashionable as it might used to be. Still, there is a general concept to bring nature in a more or less artificial form into our homes – be it aquariums, real plants and flowers or depictions of those. I got interested in the underlaying fascination with the domestic display of landscapes. Since I was residing in the US, I searched for the most symbolic motives for photo murals of US landscapes on the internet. I selected three images of places, I have not experienced live. In order to get a better understanding of the composition, I then painted the digital images in small scale on canvas (Transformation T1). Was I painting the landscape or a photo of the landscape? Is there something missing, since I never visited the real place myself?

With an interest in auto-painting computer programs, I developed such a program to paint digital images of the photo murals, to be experienced as a time-based piece (Transformation T2). Purely originating from algorithms, there is an added layer of abstraction involved. Am I, the maker of the program, or is the computer as the actual performer, painting the image?

As the large scale of photo murals seems to be an important factor (murals originally meant to offer a virtual window in a building) the installation should include a 3rd Transformation (T3) – a montage of sheet-by-sheet photo-copy-magnified tiles of one internet image covering one of the galleries' walls, imitating the photo mural in its actual size.

The original image from the internet will not be presented.