Beyond The Canvas - Bliss

Video walkthrough, Beyond the Canvas - Bliss, 2020, Tonio Mundry

Beyond the Canvas

Technology influences nearly every aspect of human life, as an artist I use new technologies as a tool to depict and at the same time challenge the perception of our "real" life.
At first glance, the viewer enters a classic exhibition of several oil paintings, moreover he gets invited to enter this very same exhibition room through a VR headset. Now, objects can be observed from all sides and one can literally enter the paintings, thus taking a peek behind the image and revealing the hidden.
Bliss – a door to a new perception of reality, which is part of the project Beyond the Canvas, is showing nothing more and nothing less than a meadow landscape, which is an interpretation of the default computer wallpaper of Microsoft ́s Windows XP. A familiar photograph to nearly every windows user since 2001, showing the perfect countryside of California, shot by Charles O' Rear. This famous image inspired me to Bliss, my second walk-in-painting.
An experience which sounds like a help to escape reality, rather corresponds with the desire for unification of two worlds and the dissolution of the picture frame; which also represents my original idea: The creation of a walk-in painting.

Beyond the Canvas – Bliss

In the light of rapid technological progress, one shows the tendency to equate images with reality; hence the desire for ever more realistic images and a high degree of immersion.
The viewer confronts himself/herself with a classic landscape oil painting. With the help of contemporary technology (VR-headset, 3D-Scan etc.) I try to invite the viewer to exit their comfort zone and to enter Bliss. Interesting to me is the question of how the classical two-dimensional painting is perceived after attending the three-dimensional virtual painting.The possibility of discovering what is behind the hills or even the little details of each single grass leaf or stone is an unique experience. To which extent the image reception changes or even the perception of the real world?
The 3D scan of the real objects (e.g. dandelion, etc) does not correspond 100% to reality, which would be technically possible, but is not relevant to my work since I am interested in revealing the imperfection of the translation from analog to digital. Therefore I developed a process to translate the 2D oil painting into 3D objects. From canvas to “virtual reality”.
The VR headset is used to dissolve the classic picture frames, and to furthermore give the viewer the feeling of free movement within the painting. Although the art work shows the wish to merge our real life with the cyber world, it still remains clear that this fusion has its weaknesses. Maybe this is our new reality — a state of (im-)perfect happiness.

Bliss, Beyond the Canvas - Bliss, 2020 Tonio Mundry

Meadow,120cm x 120cm, oil on canvas, Beyond the Canvas - Bliss, 2020, Tonio Mundry

Meadow.obj,3D file, Beyond the Canvas - Bliss, 2020, Tonio Mundry

Skybox with clouds,160cm x 80 cm, oil on canvas, Beyond the Canvas - Bliss, 2020, Tonio Mundry

Chamomile, 30cm x 30cm, oil on canvas, Beyond the Canvas - Bliss, 2020, Tonio Mundry

Chamomile.obj,3D file, Beyond the Canvas - Bliss, 2020, Tonio Mundry

Dandelion, 30cm x 30cm, oil on canvas, Beyond the Canvas - Bliss, 2020, Tonio Mundry

Dandelion.obj, 3D file, Beyond the Canvas - Bliss, 2020, Tonio Mundry

Yarrow, 30cm x 30cm, oil on canvas, Beyond the Canvas - Bliss, 2020, Tonio Mundry

Yarrow.obj, 3D file, Beyond the Canvas - Bliss, 2020, Tonio Mundry

Aldi Plastic Bag, 100cm x 100cm, oil on canvas, Beyond the Canvas - Bliss, 2020, Tonio Mundry

Aldi Plastic Bag, 3D file, Beyond the Canvas - Bliss, 2020, Tonio Mundry

Kaisers Plastic Bag, detail view, Beyond the Canvas - Bliss, 2021, Tonio Mundry