Tactile expression surfaces explore the use of traditional and non-traditional art media. Artists’ use to create, manipulate and destroy surfaces with an illusion of tangibility in an artwork. Tactile value is a term coined by Bernard Berenson in his Florentine Painters of the Renaissance (1896) to describe those qualities to be ‘life-enhancing’; that which an object is represented through weight, mass, distance, texture, motion, stability, warmth or coolness. The element of illusionism and tangibility specifically feature in the work of artists’ Rosalie Gascoigne, Anselm Kiefer and Gerhard Richter. New Zealand born Australian sculptor, Rosalie Gascoigne (1917 – 1999) is known for her distinctive and poetic assemblages of mostly found materials. Gascoigne once …show more content…
He said, “Life is an illusion. I am held together in the nothingness by art”. Kiefer confronts the viewer with sweeping perspectives in which matter acquires the textures of earth, signifying a profound and far-reaching exploration of the deeper meaning of life (Celant, Kiefer & Evans, 2008). For example, his 1981 painting, Palette (refer to Appendix 3) has applied rolls horizontally and later peeled them back to reveal a layering effect. By further enhancing the surface texture, he connects the realms between heaven and earth (Tate, n.d.). Another example of this is his 2011 painting, Nur mit Wind mit Zeit und mit Klang (refer to Appendix 4) makes the connection with the origins of human existence and the ocean. He believes that the first human cell is from the ocean, making us the intellect beings we are. Kiefer draws meaning to the sort of feeling and sound of waves roaring from the ocean as a symbolic potency. That of which texture increases the connection between himself and the