The “Life” of Location

By: Aya Albaree

In the spring break, I had the privilege of traveling to two polarizing parts of Turkey — the more rural, agricultural town of Cappadocia, and then to the bustling, lively city of Istanbul. With Turkey being around the sixth country I’ve been in, considering having lived in the United States for 10 years, visited Syria every summer before the civil war broke out, and then lived in the UAE, making up the three main countries I have been in, I have also visited Oman, Switzerland, and England. I can finally say at this point, with the cities I have been lucky enough to experience, that there is an undeniable “feel” to every country I have visited. Each city had its own sensation to experience, from how the general consensus of people felt, to the environment of the city itself. It is an intangible sensation that truly can only be felt when visiting a new country or city. Each setting has its own, breathing soul. As I look at my own photographs of Turkey, I have come to realize just how difficult it is to portray the life of these settings in photographs.

My photos of Cappadocia, Turkey. 3/29/2022

I am someone who has come to really value the atmosphere of settings, especially as someone with a complex relationship with Syria, which I haven’t seen in 8 years, and rural Kentucky, where I lived. So, although these photos capture the beauty of a part of Turkey, they do not quite capture the life I felt pulsating in the veins of the country.

As a fan of art, though, I’ve realized how many artists have come to capture a sense of “life” I feel when I think of certain settings. One artist I want to focus on is Holly Warburton, a modern artist I’ve come to really love the art of.

“I Wonder Where You’re Going”. A piece based on sketches the artist made in Amsterdam.

Holly Warburton, or Holly Warbs in some of her social media handles, is an illustrator and animator who is currently in commission. Her art strikes me for its emphasis on bringing setting from being 2D to feeling 3D. To me, these works are reminiscent of an Impressionist painting style, with rough “brush” strokes (as she paints digitally) layering over a myriad of colors to form one cohesive part of the painting. For instance, in I Wonder Where You’re Going, pink, purple, and blue are overlaid to create the shadows of the piece. I chose to show this piece because of how it portrays Amsterdam. It tells you more than what a typical photo taken by a tourist can: it shows a piece of the life and sentimentality associated with this location, the innocent curiosity in this particular person, the wonder and light-heartedness of the city.

To analyze what it is that brings these works to life, I will start with Night Time Solitude.

“Night Time Solitude”

This piece portrays a silhouette of a person in a room, with the ‘camera’ situated to be peering into the building from the outside, showing some streetlights and bushes around the building. The name of the piece describes the emotions it emits well: a sense of isolation is evoked, suggesting either the melancholia of loneliness, or perhaps the tranquility of solitariness. What makes the emotion so potent through this piece is mostly in the colors: this piece is primarily composed of green. The shows are made up of green, with the red of the street lights and billboard contrasting with the overwhelming green saturating this piece. The subject, sitting alone in this house, with only their silhouette visible rather than a clear expression in their face or body language, makes the piece’s ‘emotions’ open to interpretation. Peering into the house makes the viewers into a voyeur to the vulnerable and unsuspecting life of this individual. These combined parts, along with the impressionistic, rough painting style, creating movement in the brushstrokes that adds to the emotion, emit a sentiment that I likely would not be able to emulate in a simple photograph of a setting. Rather than just showing a setting for what it is, this painting serves to show the palpable feelings associated with these certain settings, possibly evoking feelings of nostalgia, tranquility, loneliness, lostness, and more.

Another piece I’d like to analyze is Lavender, one of my favorite pieces by Warburton.

“Lavender”

Perhaps it is because I connect this piece with my own experiences living in rural Kentucky, but I feel the subtle and subconscious emotions associated with this setting are very tangible in this piece. In addition to the painting style previously mentioned, this piece has a purple sky that contrasts with the yellow grass — its complementary color. It contains a red barn in the very middle of the painting, with dark green-blue trees and shrubs around the person that sits atop the house, who wears yellow, as they peer out to the yellow-pink clouds. The movement of the wind, blowing the hanging towel and grass a certain way, reminds me of the wind chimes I used to hear from my neighbors in America, or the sense of wind blowing through my hair when I would stand outside alone as a kid. The facelessness of the figure adds intrigue and suggestiveness to the piece, making it feel quiet, with a strange balance between melancholy and tranquility. The clouds and sky contrast with the diagonal movement of the brush strokes in the grass, making it seem that this person is staring out to the serenity of the sky. The darkness of the trees adds more mystery to this piece, to me, and could point to a desolate or moody sentimentality. Overall, it can be seen how this piece can evoke a multitude of emotions through its portrayal of setting. Warburton is not the only artist to emphasize setting in her works to evoke emotion: many Impressionist artists, amongst other artists, do this as well.

All of this is to say that real-life settings are not as simple as its environment and buildings and whatever else the setting is composed of. Real-life settings almost always have more to tell than what meets the eye in a photograph, with its own, unique consciousness that brings it to life, like a beating heart, pumping life into the people residing in this place. The people of Istanbul and Cappadocia fed off their settings; conversely, these cities were brought to life through its people, the same way Warburton’s paintings are enhanced by the people portrayed in them. As humans, we likely have our own symbiotic relationships with certain settings, like locations we associate with childhood, or family and relatives, etc. I will never get over the people who believe a setting can be replicated online through photos or simulations for this reason.

Next time you read a story, look at a painting, or visit a new city, I encourage everyone to ruminate on the settings, and what can be told through these settings. After all, humans are a reflection of their environments.

Other artists I recommend people to check out: Linden Fredrick, Bernie Fuchs, Daniel Garber, Richard Savoie, and many, many more.

Holly Warburton’s website (containing all these paintings): https://hollywarbs.com/