In Feb. 2005, I was given a train ticket to see Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s The Gates, Central Park, New York, 1979-2005. I created this painting one year later in April 2006, as a response to my memories of the experience. The subject also fit well into my continued attempts to depict the sensation of moving within an environment. My goal was not to literally paint the actual scenes that I saw, but rather to give an impression of the whole experience. I worked primarily from memory and imagination but also used references like on-site drawings and my photographs for the details.
I found The Gates incredibly inspiring and beautiful. I loved every minute of it. I walked the entire park and barely left for three days. Everyone I saw loved it. People’s faces lit up and I overheard a number of people commenting that they had never seen their fellow New Yorkers so happy and friendly as they were in the park for those two weeks. I came for the last few days and on my first night there was a huge blizzard which buried the park in snow. The next morning the orange was visible as far as the eye could see and turned the environment into a giant painting with dabs of orange among the greys of the trees and blue shadows of the snow. Rather than being only about bright orange fabric it was about the environment of Central Park itself. It was different from every point of view and in every change of light. It was surreal, whimsical, and lyrical.
On four panels, and totalling 6 feet x 18 feet, this is the largest painting on canvas I have ever done. For the first time I began to work flat on the floor and spill, stain and throw paint around. This really changed my approach as I was using my entire body. I wanted to paint in an intuitive way by allowing the imagery to naturally emerge. By continually rotating the four canvases during the process the scene eventually took shape. Random spills and gestures began to suggest trees and the surrounding buildings and streets. The form in the fourth panel which resembles a famous bridge in Central Park, just appeared without my consciously painting it.
This painting is heavily influenced by the unravelling nature of ancient Chinese handscrolls. They inspired the use of voids and changing viewpoints. I am also inspired by the later work and ideas of David Hockney. He uses multiple, shifting perspectives, and questions the legitimacy of photographic reality. I admire Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s ambition, vision and patience. One of the most important things I learned from The Gates was that it is fine for an artwork to be ephemeral. It does not need to last for hundreds of years. If it is meaningful enough it will remain in people’s memories for a long time. I am very grateful for their gift.
Copyright: Gareth Bate, 2007.