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<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nInstallation view of Christian Eckart, New works <\/em>at General Hardware<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eckart creates images using photo editing and \u2018glitching\u2019 software. Just as a traditional painter may rely on a combination of technical skill and happy accidents that occur in the medium, Eckart conducts a parallel process in the digital realm. Distortions make some areas hard to focus on, like a 3D movie without the glasses. In other places, the background forest images look like they\u2019ve been painted in watercolour or very thin glazes. Thin coloured lines between the larger fields look like registration errors on silkscreen prints. The digital nature of image manipulation becomes a prominent feature. The eye switches back and forth between seeing the abstract shapes, colours, and patterns on the surface and seeing the image of the trees in the illusionary space beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dominating the surfaces are translucent fields of brilliant colour. Reminiscent of colour-field painting, these bright rectangles cover most of the image, but we can see past them at the edges and through their diaphanous surfaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Christian Eckart, Forest<\/em>, 2020, unique, aqueous ink digital print on Belgian linen, 55\u201d x 78.5\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The forest subject matter harkens back to Northern Romantic painting, such as the birch forest paintings by Gustav Klimt. In common with the Romantic painters, Eckart re-<\/em>presents rather than represents the experience of nature. The Romantics strove to recreate the sense of awe and grandeur that they experienced in nature through the medium of their art. It was not enough to record the outward appearance, Romantics sought to recreate the exhilarating power of the encounter with the landscape. Eckart uses contemporary visual language and technology to set up an experience on the canvas that has the same emotive feel as the impact of nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eckart has maintained a long-standing interest in sacred and historical religious art. It\u2019s not hard to see the symmetrical forest in Forest 2<\/em> as a cathedral of trees. The interweaving of branches looks like the ribs of gothic arches over a central knave. Being in a forest like this, with tall trees and a high canopy, does feel like having entered a special, even sacred place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Christian Eckart, Forest 2<\/em>, 2021, unique aqueous ink digital print on Belgian linen, 48\u201d x 104\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The climate crisis has added to the associations that trees evoke. The red and orange in Forest 1<\/em> suggests the brilliant colours of fall leaves. But it\u2019s also the colour of flames. We\u2019ve seen forests destroyed by fire, by drought, and by commercial deforestation. At the same time, we\u2019ve come to understand that they are the \u2018lungs of the earth\u2019, and that healthy, abundant forests can go a long way towards saving the earth from the mess we\u2019ve made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n