Firmament (2021) Painting by Kristopher Lionel

Christopher Brown. 'Firmament'. 2021. Oil on Canvas. 39.5 x 50.5 inches.

* 'Firmament' was awarded 1st Place in the Light Space and Time Online Art Gallery's 5th Annual “Patterns” Art Competition. The gallery received 531 entries from 22 different countries from around the world, as well as from 31 different states and the District of Columbia.

'Firmament' is an expressive, surrealistic, abstract landscape in oil on stretched canvas. The composition of this painting was influenced by another piece from my 'Veiled Surfaces' series titled 'The Air Cast It's Shadow on the Water' in which I explore qualities of airiness and ethereality, using shadow as a medium, a "material" component of the piece.

'Firmament' was developed around the idea of rendering the air and sky as a tangible structure, the firmament. For this piece, I used light, atmosphere, transparency, line, shape, and color to create a complex, arching, multifaceted composition built around a central horizon line, achieving a dynamic sense of depth through the dividing and layering of visual spaces.

Consistent with my approach to the abstract expressionistic work in my 'Surfaces' and 'Veiled Surfaces' series, while painting 'Firmament' I used line, shape, and color non-objectively, like notes of music, not to describe but rather to be emotive and contemplative.

At the same time, similar to works from those series like: 'The Moment Ossified (Surface 1), 'Glimpse (Veiled Surface, Iteration 3)', and 'Copper, Water, Steel, and Air (Veiled Surface, Iteration 19)', 'Firmament' contains lyrical, dreamlike, representational elements. In the painting, below the arching structure and receding to the horizon, the land is clearly rendered in sandy ochre tones. Above is a bright blue sky holding a few wispy clouds.

To the left, the painting depicts a landscape seen through solid girders that create the framework of an open structure. To the right, the structure transforms, becoming enclosed by semi-opaque and opaque curved and flat planes. The arching lines suggest an egg, a head on its side, a breast, and the cross-section of the lens of an eye. These more literal, lyrical elements begin to change the structure from a physical thing to an intangible one, a construct of thought.

I think of this painting in terms of music, purely abstract, emotive notes arranged with evocative, poetic lyrics. Through this piece, with paint, I set out to depict air and, through the process, by working intuitively and allowing my subconscious to assert itself, found that I was not merely attempting to render the air and sky as a tangible structure, but to render memory and thought itself.

'Firmament' is an offshoot from my series 'Veiled Surface (Iterations)' which, in turn, developed out of my 'Surface' series. 'Firmament' departs from the work in 'Veiled Surface (Iterations)' from the first step. When making my 'Iterations,' the first step is to veil (cover) a piece from 'Surfaces' by laying paper or canvas on it. I then use charcoal, chalk, or pencil to make a rubbing that lifts an impression (sketch) from the surface, in which the bas-relief cuts and textures underneath are transferred to the support. For 'Firmament,' my first step was to free-hand sketch in oil the initial composition as an interpretation of my piece 'The Air Cast Its Shadow On The Water (Veiled Surface, Iteration 11)'. From there, the piece was completed in oil.

Related themes

AbstractLandscape PaintingAbstract ArtAbstract ExpressionismSurrealism