Floating Books and Blue Trees

Aleid Channing in collaboration with Lindsey Whitelaw

Aleid’s floating books by Lindsey Whitelaw - 45 x 45 cm oil on canvas

In this collaboration, Lindsey showed Aleid her original artwork ‘Blue Trees Old Town’. Aleid has a condition which causes her to have double vision. She described what she saw in Lindsey’s piece and Lindsey painted a second piece to describe her response.

When Lindsey showed Aleid the original ‘Blue Trees Old Town’ painting, it was propped on a sofa next to a coffee table, with a pile of books on its surface, including Feast Magazine and a Scrabble dictionary. Aleid’s eye condition means that she has double vision. As she was looking at Lindsey’s artwork, the books from the coffee table floated up in her vision and obscured the painting. Lindsey captured this in her response ‘Aleid’s Floating Books’ shown above.

Description of the artwork

The three skeletal trees described in the original BlueTrees Old Town 2 are virtually obliterated by a pile of magazines and a pink carrier bag which have floated to the centre of the canvas. A bright green paperback scrabble dictionary lies in the foreground on top of a Feast magazine and behind that an atlas..In the background stands a fuchsia pink paper bag. The lilac grey blue wall which occupies the whole of the background and rectangle of blue sky in the top left-hand corner are just visible around the perimeter of the books and bag.