Across Edges: Art to Cartography; One Landscape to the Next

Darren Sears

doi:10.5194/ica-proc-4-98-2021

Abstract

Abstract. Maps have the empowering effect of placing the “world at your fingertips,” compressing portions of it into a more “knowable” form. I find that some places have this map-like character even in real life—natural environments that are sliced by sharp, unexpected edges and contrasts into more accessible and digestible fragments. Over the years I have explored creating maps that heighten these places’ compressed quality but also preserve their immersive aspect.This search led me first to the field of landscape architecture, and then into two dimensions after I realized that creating these idealized places out in real world was mostly a fantasy. I began piecing together travel photographs into abstract photomontages, later reinterpreted in oil paints, that sharpen natural edges and contrasts to depict imaginary places. I then transitioned to watercolors, and toward depicting places not quite as imaginary, using the same fractured style to combine travel-inspired landscapes with bird’s-eye views.Finding the task of painting the individual fragments less engaging than the process of shaping them into compositions, I came to think of these works as maps in terms of both theory and process—in emphasizing the spatial relationships between scenes rather than the individual scenes themselves. My motivation for creating these maps has expanded beyond personal fulfilment to include conveying the fragility of the natural remnants and contrasts that captivate me.

Highlights

I am attracted to maps largely for their empowering effect of condensing pieces of the real world down into a more “knowable” form
I find that some places have this map-like character even in real life—natural environments that are sliced by sharp, unexpected edges and contrasts into more accessible and digestible fragments
Over the years I have explored creating maps that heighten these places’ compressed quality and preserve their immersive aspect. This search led me first to the field of landscape architecture, and into two dimensions after I realized that creating these idealized places out in real world was mostly a fantasy

Summary

Introduction

I am attracted to maps largely for their empowering effect of condensing pieces of the real world down into a more “knowable” form. In downsizing the multiple facets of a place and sharpening the contrasts between them, maps emphasize the edges and adjacencies of those facets. It is experiencing a landscape’s edge and a different environment beyond it that makes that landscape comprehensible and meaningful to me, just as darkness gives meaning to light. Some real-world places—islands and landscape patchworks of various kinds with well-defined edges around or within them—have this map-like character even before they are distilled onto paper. I find these “lived maps” empowering in their own way: representing landscape contrasts from above on 2-D maps might accentuate the real thing, but those representations lack the power of immersion. What sort of map might further compress the “lived” version while preserving an element of the real-world experience that is crucial to its impact? The search for a means of expressing my spatial rather than scenic way of viewing the world has been a multi-year exploration across the boundaries of art, design, and cartography

Lived Maps

Early Exploration

Fracturing

Precision

Synthesis

Worldviews