Baagøe Jepsen
Original Fine Art
“Rainy Day Monday”
When I first photographed this piece in the garden for my Instagram account, it quickly became a matter of timing, wiping off drops of rain and rushing to take more pictures before the next drops began to fall. I finally thought we had succeeded and posted the pictures, only to find that the painting still had traces of drops, some partly wiped off and others not so much. After all the work preceding my rainy day photo session, a few drops of rain ended up giving name to the piece.
Before I had to fight the weather to photograph this piece, it had to be formed, first in my mind and then in the studio. I wanted to free myself from the conventions while still using conventional tools to do so, and what could be more conventional than paint and canvas in art–so that’s where I began.
The canvas, often referred to as ground, typically given a barely mentioned passive role and stretcher bars, discrete supports for the ground, could instead be called on as media, all working together, not to just carry a medium but all be equally significant media.
Much thought and experimentation came before the actual conceptualization of my idea but I wanted paint, canvas and stretcher bars to be media–all merged into one expression. For canvas and stretcher bars to be considered of value, their characteristics had to be considered and properly displayed to qualify as media.
But, with multiple media there must be a balance and when both stretcher bars and canvas explode into view, demanding attention, the painting must be equally explosive.
Photographed under different circumstances, away from the rain and using in-house lighting, here is my first realization of what began as merely an idea, challenging myself, wondering if in bringing out the characteristics of canvas, how far it would stretch–and still not rip or get wobbles (the rips and wobbles are maybe for another painting, another day.)
Baagøe Jepsen 