Sculpting Water

Danielle O’Steen

Winand Staring has created a context of nature in his paintings that speaks to his own experiences with the land and with water. He seeks to pay tribute to nature’s precious resources and portray a seemingly objective entity, water, as a personal experience. The connection between the artist and the paintings sparks a physicality in Staring’s work that, with his technique of using strong layers of oil paint, pays tribute to sculptural concerns. The bodily nature of his work not only refers to the artist himself, but also to bodily qualities of nature. Similarly, the strong physical nature in Staring’s work is accompanied with a constant, restless motion created by his palette and brushstrokes. While Staring works with abstracted form in all of his work, there is a variation in his portraiture of nature and her precious resource, water.

Seascape Blue

Staring’s Seascape Green provides a more traditional example of the artist’s perception of these natural forces. The construction of the painting mimics a traditional approach of representing the separation of water and sky with a horizon line. The strong white lines cutting through the composition enforces this separation. However, the palette and the brushstrokes evoke a unity in the scene to create an eternal image of the ocean and the sky. This work exemplifies Staring’s reflection of nature as an important spiritual entity in his life. A piece of the artist is left behind in this work. Seascape Green sets the stage for more abstracted works like Seadance, where the theme of water and the ocean reigns supreme.

Seadance creates an abstracted atmosphere where Staring’s creativity can connect with the universality of water. He uses a varied palette of bold colors that, combined with the rich texture of the oil paint, portrays motion and timelessness. Colors melt together to create thick layers that evoke the heavy layers of water throughout the natural cycle. The fluidity in Staring’s work is reminiscent of the Abstract Expressionist Helen Frankenthaler’s thin washes where the concentration of color provides the movement. Staring, however, is able to create fluid motion by combining a traditional medium with concerns of abstract art.

Born in Venezuela, Staring’s extensive travelling and background in water management provide the basis for his interests in motion and natural forces. His constant physical interactions with water and earth have formed his technique of creating waterscape art in addition to adding the sculptural quality to his work. Staring’s interest in heralding the forces of nature follows a similar mindset to earthwork art that has grown drastically since its introduction in the 1970s. Artists such as Robert Smithson, Walter de Maria and Michael Heizer led the way for art that created a physical connection between the artist and the earth. In the way that Staring’s paintings portray eternal motion in water sources, earthwork art strives to acknowledge the earth in its timeless form. Recent earthwork art has appeared from artists such as Lois Dellert, who is more formal in his endeavors than his predecessors were. Dellert exhibits hand-packed dirt to embody the layering of earth on a human-sized scale. Similarly, Staring shows an interest in isolating aspects of nature to the scale of a canvas. James Turrell is another artist that works on framing characteristics of nature without removing its grandiose qualities. His Meeting (1986) is able to frame sections of the sky so that its color and intensity can be celebrated. Staring achieves a similar feat in capturing the spectrum of color that is possible with water.

However, comparing earthwork art and waterscape paintings is difficult because of the extreme difference in their respective materials. Staring’s paintings portray aspects of nature but also express an intensely personal connection. Works such as World to Come and The Ocean Child embody characteristics of nature in addition to adding personal subject matter based on the titles. The artist appears as an observer in the scene and personal experience becomes a key player. Although the presence of the artist does exist in earthwork art, there is a limit to the artist’s imagination. In World to Come, Staring is able to recreate a genesis by evoking concepts of water. The balance of color and the delicate brushstrokes create movement in an abstracted form. The Ocean Child has more strength, which furthers the presence of a life force in the composition. Where the flotsam and jetsam in the ocean can create life, a mish-mash of oil paint in Staring’s work can create a life force based on his imagination.

Following a tradition of holistic art, Staring states on his website: "The basis to create this art lays in the ‘creative body’ of the artist, that in his interconnections with his own world activates the cosmic energy that emerges from his higher self and liberates this creative energy in the form of spontanic images, reflecting real life as a supreme creative process in universe that touches everyone and everything like a unison colored net, connected in harmony." Works such as Eternity 2, Eternity 3, and Eternity 4 are exemplary of Staring’s holistic philosophy in their timeless compositions. The piles of oil paint in the center help to nurture the smooth and balanced swirls that form the outside perimeters of the painting. The arms of paint encircling the center is reminiscent of the cycles of nature. Staring’s work acts as records for his own artistic experiences that are contained in the cosmos.

Apparent in Staring’s paintings is his ability to travel between the reality of the natural world and his own experience. Therefore, he is able to tackle issues of physicality by creating a sculptural environment in his compositions while pushing a traditional medium to its limit. He also uses color relationships to evoke the entirety of water as nature’s most precious resource. Staring’s artistic choices manage to challenge any concept of water as static, predictable or monotonous.

Sculpting Water – Danielle O’Steen

Sculpting Water