Work on Monday: “Corn Wheat Sky” by Daniel Gonzalez
After a couple weeks off, Work on Monday returns with a fine art photograph, “Corn Wheat Sky,” by Sag Harbor photographer Daniel Gonzalez. The award-winning piece shows off Gonzalez’s expert use of color and composition to create an image as strong as many of the minimalist and color field paintings it references.
Work on Monday is a weekly look at one piece of art related to the East End, usually by a Hamptons or North Fork artist, living or dead, created in any kind of media. Join the conversation by posting your thoughts in the comments below and email suggestions for a future Work on Monday here.
Corn Wheat Sky
Daniel Gonzalez (b. 1960)
Digital photograph printed on canvas
24 x 24 inches, 2011
Shot in Bridgehampton, “Corn Wheat Sky” captures a natural pattern at an ideal moment, when the cloudless Hamptons sky is at its bluest, the wheat is glimmering gold in sunshine, and the corn stalks stand in a deep green hue, long before the seasons change and the cold brings only brown and gray. Hard to read from a distance, the photograph has an almost cartoon-ish quality of color—a subconscious indicator of its subject—and such clean lines it seems obvious that it’s painted. But as one gets closer, we see it is a portrait of the classic East End farm, albeit from a unique and striking perspective.
Closer still, the photograph again shows its painterly flair. Blurring into the green line of corn, Gonzalez’s wheat appears almost as feathered brushstrokes—blending the fields of color at their point of contact. As the eye moves down, it retains this logic and sees the randomness of nature as a continued pattern of brushwork. It’s an almost divine composition when considering that the photographer has only documented what was already there. Of course without Gonzalez’s keen eye, patience and innovation as an artist, this could easily be a scene quickly passed and lost forever along the disappearing road.
To see more of Daniel Gonzalez’s work, visit danielgonzalezphotography.com. He is currently showing photographs, including “Corn Wheat Sky,” at Salon Xavier (1A Bay Street) in Sag Harbor, salonxavier.com.