…One was the face of Nature; if a face:
Rather a rude and indigested mass:
A lifeless lump, unfashion’d, and unfram’d,
Of jarring seeds; and justly Chaosnam'd…
Ovid, Metamorphosis
The Synterial series is an offshoot of the Garden Studies and is a word I coined in an attempt to define my interests regarding shaped frames that are not merely utilitarian ways to protect what is framed but are holistic containers that point to content as much as what is framed explores the same—coupling particular frames with particular verbal ideas enhances associative meanings, reflecting and magnifying each other within the context of highly individualized projects. Not merely ornamental, these shaped frames are meant to be so thoroughly integrated that the contents would be meaningless were it not for the frame and vice versa. Synterials are often generated by a general concept before selecting text or otherwise building off a particular text. For example, the below works in the series began with the following titles, ideations, and book references:
While the Synterial series explores the relationships between collage aesthetics and the definition of landscape in highly detailed ways, it is important to acknowledge that the series, in general, builds off artist Jess’ (Collin) “Translations,” which always begin with a text, which are in turn always affixed to the back of his works. Similarly, Synterial backs are replete with quotes and references. The distinction between the Garden Study drawings and Synterials has to do with the ways in which each particular series looks at landscape history. The Synterial series, for example, is not limited to a particular realm of land depiction such as painting, as are the drawings over Ovid’s Metamorphosis, which more often than not appropriate imagery from landscape history in as much as I attempt to mimic, augment, copy or edit well-known land painter’s scenery. The distinguishing aspect of the Synterial series—the primary reason for creating this body of work—is the exploration of motivating forces and factors about how and why we humans inhabit space and treat land the ways in which we do. I am interested in the psychology and morality of land usage and the attitudes that govern our behavior in the field, and how these fleeting attitudes shift from century to century, decade to decade. The Ovid series is more about chronicling the history of how the present conditions evolved, and those drawings are often relegated to intuitive and gestural creation in keeping with Ovid’s opening poem, whereas the Synterial works are attempts to give meaning and shape to the “rude and indigested mass,” the “unfashion’d, and unfram’d jarring seeds” of our consumer-based global lifestyles and the “Chaos” of our planets deteriorating condition.
Todd Bartel 2007 (revised, June 2010)
Rather a rude and indigested mass:
A lifeless lump, unfashion’d, and unfram’d,
Of jarring seeds; and justly Chaosnam'd…
Ovid, Metamorphosis
The Synterial series is an offshoot of the Garden Studies and is a word I coined in an attempt to define my interests regarding shaped frames that are not merely utilitarian ways to protect what is framed but are holistic containers that point to content as much as what is framed explores the same—coupling particular frames with particular verbal ideas enhances associative meanings, reflecting and magnifying each other within the context of highly individualized projects. Not merely ornamental, these shaped frames are meant to be so thoroughly integrated that the contents would be meaningless were it not for the frame and vice versa. Synterials are often generated by a general concept before selecting text or otherwise building off a particular text. For example, the below works in the series began with the following titles, ideations, and book references:
- Pollination of Devonia: a frame with a bridge to another frame: Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, Ovid, Metamorphosis
- Surrender to Vastness: a spired frame: Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhem Meister’s Travels
- Conflict of the Heart: a pregnant frame: William Shakespeare, Hamlet
- American Sublime: a cornered frame: William Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
While the Synterial series explores the relationships between collage aesthetics and the definition of landscape in highly detailed ways, it is important to acknowledge that the series, in general, builds off artist Jess’ (Collin) “Translations,” which always begin with a text, which are in turn always affixed to the back of his works. Similarly, Synterial backs are replete with quotes and references. The distinction between the Garden Study drawings and Synterials has to do with the ways in which each particular series looks at landscape history. The Synterial series, for example, is not limited to a particular realm of land depiction such as painting, as are the drawings over Ovid’s Metamorphosis, which more often than not appropriate imagery from landscape history in as much as I attempt to mimic, augment, copy or edit well-known land painter’s scenery. The distinguishing aspect of the Synterial series—the primary reason for creating this body of work—is the exploration of motivating forces and factors about how and why we humans inhabit space and treat land the ways in which we do. I am interested in the psychology and morality of land usage and the attitudes that govern our behavior in the field, and how these fleeting attitudes shift from century to century, decade to decade. The Ovid series is more about chronicling the history of how the present conditions evolved, and those drawings are often relegated to intuitive and gestural creation in keeping with Ovid’s opening poem, whereas the Synterial works are attempts to give meaning and shape to the “rude and indigested mass,” the “unfashion’d, and unfram’d jarring seeds” of our consumer-based global lifestyles and the “Chaos” of our planets deteriorating condition.
Todd Bartel 2007 (revised, June 2010)