Guild Hall Gallery

​

Marc Weinstein

Gaudi Blue

​

The genesis of Gaudi Blue. I was always drawn to Antonio Gaudi’s work. The organic animal forms intrigued me. So when I visited Barcelona, I visited all of the typical Gaudi stops immediately.

 

First the Sagrada Familia church with its organic exterior and cold fearful interior. Then on to Casa Batllo, a masterpiece of craftsmanship and Casa Mila, with its mask faced chimneys.

 

After a few days of enjoying the rest of Barcelona, on our last day, we visited Park Guell, with its imposing iron gates and Gaudi’s home. I was interested in seeing the two structures that frame the entry gate. One was the gift shop, but the other was the gatekeepers home. As I entered the back stairs, I was absorbed by the walls of blue venetian plaster illuminated by a window on each landing. 

 

These photographs are from my observations on the three stair landings: a few moments of color, form and Gaudi's structure on film.

 

I was excited to edit and print these images. When I was organizing them, I realized that even for myself, by observing the angle of light in the photographs, that it was difficult to remember the actual perspective of each photo. 

 

When I set them up in a contact sheet for proper viewing, I created a relationships structure with the contact sheet grid. I continued to cut the contact sheet into various combinations until I achieved Grid #1. After that moment, these images and the grids started to take on a life of their own.

 

As visual images, the appeal is their ambiguity of space, through light and color inside a two-dimensional frame. As grids, the image combinations can be kaleidoscopic. 

 

I’ve also created a “Game” grid, which allows an observer to create their own possibilties. 

 

They were successfully used at Mary Colby’s studio, where the audience participation even created written poetry as part of an open amorphous grid. 

 

“These images are no longer mine, they belong to the viewer.”

 

​

​