Revisiting Carol Rhodes: The Sound of a Scottish Landscape
By Ami Melville
What does a landscape sound like?
Is it loud with rushing cars or people chattering? Or is it filled with nothing but the wind?
How does the landscape speak to you?
The relationship between humans and nature has long been contested by a plethora of artists worldwide and throughout history. Some embrace the technological advances imprinted upon our environment and characterize such with complimentary vigor; others argue against the permanent impact of industrialization on Earth’s natural beauty. Regardless of their stances, the significant developments of human societies, especially in the past two centuries, has crucially changed the way artists view and compose their landscapes. Therefore, the reactions we have to such works– the auras they emit, the sounds we think of, the way they speak to us– are different as well.
Edinburgh-born artist Carol Rhodes’ landscapes are both detailed with intimacy and ambiguous through distance. Her work is centrally characterized through her distinctive aerial views of her subjects, which she paints with precision and selectivity. Partially fictionalized and mixed with aerial photos she took herself, her landscapes present the viewer with a world touched by human interaction but absent of all human presence. These hints of familiarity are filled with physical and psychological distance, as she crafts a thought-provoking equilibrium that appeals to the reader’s senses in a unique way. Rhodes additionally uses shape and movement to first characterize the land, and then color to distinguish it from the unnatural bodies of parking lots, airports and other manmade locations.
In her piece Airport, Rhodes juxtaposes the harshly curved lines of an airport’s surroundings with the rolling hills adjacent to it. The landscape around the structure is muted with a soft pastel hue, occasionally marked by darker patches of trees and gradual shading to characterize depth. The roads of the airport slice through the greenery with stark grays and sharp turns, distinguishing natural forces from human activity. The viewer can see no human presence and additionally has no human view from above; the only evidence of interaction with the landscape is in the manmade structure below.
Carol Rhodes, Airport, 1995, Oil on hardboard, 563 x 626 x 57 mm.
Additionally, Rhodes has changed the relationship between human activity and sounds through this piece. Placing people in her work would make the viewer imagine some sound to accompany its tone, but she has deliberately left them out. In their place is a distinct stillness, as if she has paused the work’s motion to characterize it through her own eyes. The airplanes, while detailed, are non moving and silent. There are no cars in what would otherwise be a busy place. Rhodes’ fictionalized society generates an almost uneasy balance between the creator of sound and the lack of sound altogether.
Carol Rhodes, Carpark/Canal, 1994, Oil on hardboard, 51.4 x 44.6 cm.
Rhodes explores this eerie concept through Carpark (also known as Canal), in which she paints an empty car park that covers the majority of her landscape. This time, the gentle hills and muted pastures are in the background with the viewer placed at the forefront of the manmade space. Evidence of civilization remains, with the faint details of a city on the horizon and four tiny flags raised at the edge of the car park, but the remainder of the work remains uninhabited. The emptiness fills the viewer with both questions and unease– why is the car park empty? Where are all the people? This painting, similarly to Airport, emits an almost uncomfortable aura as a space that is meant to be filled yet is not. The warm tones contribute to this aura, casting a nostalgic, familiar feeling on the piece. However, the bodies of this nostalgia remain absent.
The juxtaposition between Rhodes’ vast landscapes and her small scale details causes the viewer to notice both the absence of objects and the significant presence of the ones Rhodes chooses to depict. She deliberately picks markers of human society that serve a purpose only to humans, such as the trash can in the corner of Carpark and the tiny airplanes of Airplane. Yet, there are no people around to use them, rendering them useless in the fictional environments she creates.
Through these landscapes, Rhodes generates a new relationship between humans and their environment. She invites the viewer into a familiar yet distant world absent of movement or bodily presence, causing them to notice specific details and analyze the world through a different lens.
Bibliography
“Carol Rhodes Obituary.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, December 13, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/dec/13/carol-rhodes-obituary.
Foulkes, Carrie, Dan Ward, Jamie Limond, Gemma Batchelor, William Davie, Morning Star, David Fraser Jenkins, et al. “Alison Jacques.” Carol Rhodes – Alison Jacques, October 1, 2022. https://alisonjacques.com/artists/carol-rhodes.
Rhodes, Carol. “Carpark, Canal.” National Galleries of Scotland. National Galleries of Scotland. https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/50427.
Tate. “'Airport', Carol Rhodes, 1995.” Tate, January 1, 1995. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/rhodes-airport-t12861.