Hilary Lawson, Openess (2005)

Medium: Video Painting, Projection, Color and no sound

Dimensions: 41 Scapes | Duration: 6 hours, 35 min., 8 sec.

Collection: Video Painting Solo Series

Edition of 7

Reference: VPSS-HLO05

Openness was shot in the Black Mountains and the Welsh marshes between 2001 and 2005 by founding artist of the Artscape Project, Hilary Lawson. The collection is six and a half hours in length and made up of forty one video paintings. Highly literal and naturalistic in its subject matter, Openness was premiered at the Future Cities exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in 2007 as a poignant juxtaposition to the rest of the exhibition.

The collection explores the natural environment encircling our cities. Out in this open expanse of nature there is a time for the picnic in late summer, a time to huddle in the copse against the wind, a time to fight the elements and reach the summit. These video paintings remind us where we are, where we have been, and where we might venture.

Lawson’s initial work in 2001 focused on attempts to escape the limitations of the traditional video narrative, which quickly led to the definition of the video painting medium: video paintings are created with a stationary camera and presented without editing or any subsequent manipulation and no sound. Openness is a very pure form of video painting. The literal style of these works exposes the denial of narrative and leads the viewer into a new way of looking upon moving imagery. The dominant and attention grabbing power of video that saturates contemporary culture is shunned in favour of a fresh restraint and subtlety.