CORNELIA RAVENAL
PROCESS
STARTING WITH PHOTOGRAPHS
Photography is my springboard. So although the works here appear to be block prints and lithographs, especially when printed on paper, they are, in fact, photographs I've transformed using layers of filters and painting. My goals are both aesthetic - to create something visually engaging - and conceptual - to transform an image until it becomes a comment on the original.
DECONSTRUCTING NATURE
I start with taking macro-closeups of organic forms, which I then alter with computer filters and digital painting. My first forays, on this page, were representational. In the CITRUS series, I changed only colors. But soon, I began to not only represent, but to reconceive. This led to the FISH series, where I took a closeup of a piece of salmon, then altered it until it looked like the sea from which it came.
REPESENTATION TO ABSTRACTION
As I pushed images toward abstraction, they no longer referenced their photographic origins. That led me to the BREAD series, which I imagined a shaft of wheat woven into dough, then rising. Finally I moved into PATTERNS, where I started with an image from the natural world, such as a piece of romaine lettuce. I cut out a small square, then treated it as a mosaic. I then arranged the mosaics to create new images that I transformed with filters and digital painting.
See the PATTERNS:
INSPIRED BY PLACES
I'm inspired by prints I’ve seen in India, where I’ve lived and worked, but I also use palettes from Sweden, my second home. Other prints are inspired by Byzantine mosaics I saw as a child. Still others are inspired by Indonesian batiks or blooming English gardens. The result is a mix of influences, both cultural and aesthetic.
See the FOOD: