Anne Fellner

In 2020, Anne Fellner developed a series of “virtual plein air” paintings based on her observation of a webcam at the lighthouse of Point No Point, a headland on the northeast point of the Kitsap Peninsula in Washington State, not far from the artist’s childhood home. The grainy resolution of the webcam lends the scenery a floating, abstract quality, which is echoed by the loose, synthetic materials. The landscapes are complemented by a pair of abstract portraits or mindscapes, representations of the Point prior to figuration.

In the beginning, there is only color. The canvas painted to become a canvas.(1) Setting the tone. To make visible.(2) The lighthouse as a signifier of land. From afar, it is a point. As you approach, it disappears: no point. A setting erodes through movement. Turn it around. We have a changing backdrop and a backdrop changed.

The image is automatically refreshed every 10 seconds and faces northeast

Surveillance cameras show what they are observing, but only after the fact—the time it takes for digital technology to transport information. A lag, a delay. Here, we are no longer a boat approaching, but watching the boat approach.(3) Surveillance as journey.

Point No Point’s contradictory name can be blamed on its appearance from the water (4)

The unchanging view changes. The lighting shifts. Now there are people. Now they are gone. No, something else. The video is blurred, pixelated.(5) Every recording is an abstraction. The painting: a recording of a recording. Observation: a recording outside of a recording. En plein air. We are outside of outside. New notions of context arise and disappear upon approach. Two ships in the night.(6) Recording as intervention.

In a sense, the little sentinel was a harbinger of things to come

A destination reached. On land, the former vessels are rendered useless. Still, the lighthouse retains its role as signifier; only the signified has changed places. A story once told may be retold. The memory of a place, of arrival and departure. The boundaries are blurred: time as a vessel. Layers of emotional precipitate.(7)

The invention that saved a million ships

A succession of concentric rings to concentrate the light. A sharp beam to cut through the darkness. Once again, we see a point.(8) Guided focus. Dark and light as color and contour. That which can be seen through contrast. Each element, a unique purpose: to depict by making visible.

(1) Underpainting, v. – to visually undermine

(2) Blocking in, v. – to enclose; to optically withhold

(3) Impressionism, n. – the belief that it’s not the destination, but the journey that matters.

(4) Opacity, n. – the degree to which something no longer exists.

(5) Scumble, n. – a commonly used and widely accepted misspelling of stumble.

(6) Expressionism, n. – the belief that the ends justify the means.

(7) The humanities, n. – the measure of the universe

(8) Alla prima, v., to return to the beginning.

⏤ Sharmila Cohen, Point No Point