2019-03-01_American_Art_Collector

(Martin Jones) #1

136 http://www.AmericanArtCollector.com


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hilip Buller’s process for creating Two
Men, Boats, Orange Light in oil on paper,
mounted on aluminum, parallels the experi-
mentation with process used by Heinrich
Kühn (1866-1944) when he created his gum
bichromate print of the original image circa


  1. It was reproduced in a 1911 edition of
    Alfred Stieglitz’s magazine Camera Work.
    Buller notes, “Part of my painting process
    involves searching for images which move
    me in some way. Again and again I find
    myself drawn to images from the early days
    of photography; the late 1800s and early
    1900s. I feel a sense of wonder, following in
    my mind the path that light has taken over
    100 years, to reach me here in my studio.
    “Imagine: in 1900 sunlight reflects off
    a face and registers on a light sensitive


plate,” Buller continues. “That impression is
printed and finds its way into a book which
I, in turn, scan, print and manipulate. Here
now, under this light, in this time, I work
with the very same patterns generated by
that long ago light. I want to not just use
the image but to ingest it and make it mine.”
Buller uses sunlight to burn an image
onto a window screen forcing paint
through the screen to allow him to repeat
the image elsewhere in an image, creating
a “ghost image.” In Brothers, for instance,
the image is repeated over and over in its
entirety or is moved to the left or the right
so that one or the other of the brothers
falls out of the image. He trusts his intu-
ition as he assembles and manipulates his
compositions and is constantly aware of

the negative space.
“Watercolorists know that the whitest
white is the paper,” he explains. “They have
to see the space in between to utilize that
white. The shapes of the spaces in between
are no less important than the things. In
my work often when I get stuck, if I go back
to the negative spaces. I can free myself.
There’s not a lot of baggage attached to
space. A tree can remind me of Christmas,
for instance, but if I look at the space
around it, it allows me to see the shapes.”
Buller’s latest work will be shown at
Quidley & Company in Naples, Florida,
March 13 through 30.

Quidley & Company 385 Broad Avenue South •
Naples, FL 34102 • (239) 261-4300 • http://www.quidleyandco.com

PHILIP BULLER

Patterned Images


UPCOMING SHOW PREVIEW / QUIDLEY & COMPANY
3/13-3/30 Naples, FL

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