Alan Rankle
Encyclopedia
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
artist, born in Oldham, Lancashire
Oldham
Oldham is a large town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies amid the Pennines on elevated ground between the rivers Irk and Medlock, south-southeast of Rochdale, and northeast of the city of Manchester...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in 1952. He studied at Rochdale
School of Art (1968–70), and Goldsmiths, University of London (1970–73). He is one of the leading artists of his generation to explore social and environmental issue
Environmental issue
Environmental issues are negative aspects of human activity on the biophysical environment. Environmentalism, a social and environmental movement that started in the 1960s, addresses environmental issues through advocacy, education and activism.-Types:...
s of the day through Landscape Art. His first exhibition, held at the Institute of Contemporary Arts
Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Institute of Contemporary Arts is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. It is located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch...
, London, was a multi-media performance/installation based on Chaucer's The Pardonner's Tale (1973). Since which time during a thirty year career he has worked primarily as a painter.
Rankle takes as his main subject the development of landscape art as a concept related to changes in attitude to the environment. In some works he treats the entire history of landscape painting almost as a found object
Found object
A found object, in an artistic sense, indicates the use of an object which has not been designed for an artistic purpose, but which exists for another purpose already. Found objects may exist either as utilitarian, manufactured items, or things which occur in nature...
; manipulating and cross-referencing styles and techniques from diverse periods and cultures, within a post-modernist fusion of abstract
Abstract art
Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
, trompe l'oeil
Trompe l'oeil
Trompe-l'œil, which can also be spelled without the hyphen in English as trompe l'oeil, is an art technique involving extremely realistic imagery in order to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects appear in three dimensions.-History in painting:Although the phrase has its origin in...
, and figurative imagery. In "Landscapes for the North" Maidstone Museum 1996 he states: "Styles are emblems of the ways we can shift our attention".
Further studies
From 1973 feeling that his work, while well informed by conceptual artConceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
practice, lacked a realistic visceral dimension, he immersed himself in a study of the techniques of 17th Century Dutch Masters, the Abstract Expressionists and significantly the Ch'an (Zen
Zen
Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. The word Zen is from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Chán , which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which can be approximately translated as "meditation" or "meditative state."Zen...
) painters and calligraphers of China.
During 1973–76 he studied Taoist and Ch'an Buddhist Arts, including T'ai Chi Ch'uan, with Dr. Liu Hsiu Chi. Fellow students at the Liu Academy included the musician Francis Monkman
Francis Monkman
Francis Monkman is an English rock, classical and film score composer, and a founding member of the progressive rock band Curved Air.-Career:...
, and Fritjof Capra
Fritjof Capra
Fritjof Capra is an Austrian-born American physicist. He is a founding director of the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California, and is on the faculty of Schumacher College....
author of 'The Tao of Physics.' During this time Rankle's pursuit of his interests in Old Master
Old Master
"Old Master" is a term for a European painter of skill who worked before about 1800, or a painting by such an artist. An "old master print" is an original print made by an artist in the same period...
painting led him to further studies and later employment in the field of art conservation.
Environmental concerns
Andy Goldsworthy
Andy Goldsworthy, OBE is a British sculptor, photographer and environmentalist producing site-specific sculpture and land art situated in natural and urban settings. He lives and works in Scotland.-Life and career:The son of F...
and Michael Jepson; Rankle's work in landscape art became starkly politicised. In the summer of 1982 on his first trip to Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
he became aware of the effects of acid rain
Acid rain
Acid rain is a rain or any other form of precipitation that is unusually acidic, meaning that it possesses elevated levels of hydrogen ions . It can have harmful effects on plants, aquatic animals, and infrastructure. Acid rain is caused by emissions of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen...
on the lakes and forests of Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
, and the patently inadequate response of the establishment. A series of landmark installation/performance pieces followed intended to draw attention to environmental issues (often as fund raising events for Arts for the Earth, the art 'wing' of Friends of the Earth
Friends of the Earth
Friends of the Earth International is an international network of environmental organizations in 76 countries.FOEI is assisted by a small secretariat which provides support for the network and its agreed major campaigns...
). These included a 30 metre long scroll painting produced on the top of Beachy Head
Beachy Head
Beachy Head is a chalk headland on the south coast of England, close to the town of Eastbourne in the county of East Sussex, immediately east of the Seven Sisters. The cliff there is the highest chalk sea cliff in Britain, rising to 162 m above sea level. The peak allows views of the south...
in Sussex with his collaborator Jan Stephens, and several notable pieces with the left-field artists group Order out of Chaos; one of which 'Discarded Sculptures' (1986) was the first project to bring his work to the attention of a wider public.
Earthscape
Andrew Graham-Dixon
Andrew Michael Graham-Dixon is a British art historian and broadcaster.-Education:Graham-Dixon was educated at the independent Westminster School and at Christ Church at the University of Oxford, where he read English...
(who were the judges of the competition), Art in Ruins
Art in Ruins
Art in Ruins was formed in 1984 as a collaborative interventionist practice in art and architecture, staging exhibitions, and publishing texts, by artists Hannah Vowles and Glyn Banks.-History and practice:...
, Lynne Green, Nick Wates, and the book and exhibition designer Jeremy Brook.
Recent work
Since his 1993 exhibition 'Riverfall & Other Works' at Southampton Art Gallery, Rankle has concentrated on painting, with notable exhibitions at Maidstone Museum; Radicev Museum, Saratov, 1996; Danielle Arnaud/Clink Wharf Gallery, 1998; Folkstone Museum, 1999; as well as numerous gallery shows in Europe, Scandinavia, and USA.A first Retrospective Exhibition 'Landscapes for the Turning Earth' was held at Gallery Oldham 2006/7.
A second Retrospective - "Selected Works 1993–2009" at Fondazione Stelline, in Milan during February - March 2010, also features a major collaborative work with the installation artist Kirsten Reynolds
Kirsten Reynolds
Kirsten Reynolds is a British artist who makes works using a wide variety of media. She often works with sound and light and uses electronics, video and found objects to make artworks. Her practice also encompasses drawing, painting, sculpture, collage and print-making...
entitled "On the Edge of Wrong".
External links
Sources
- Anthony Wallersteiner 'Alan Rankle:Terre Verte' Danielle Arnaud/Riverfall Press 1998
- Laurence Bristow-Smith 'Alan Rankle:Landscapes for the Turning Earth, Paintings 1986–2006' Gallery Oldham 2006
- Roger Woods 'Alan Rankle at Southampton Art Gallery' Art-Line International, Winter 1993
- Imy Antal 'Alan Rankle: Light + Meaning' Galleria Seriola, Finland, 2006
- Emanuelle Beluffi 'Alan Rankle & Kirsten Reynolds:On the Edge of Wrong' First Gallery/Italian Factory 2010