Somewhere

Executed in 1998, Somewhere depicts a landscape that is both eerie and twee. Raedecker has managed to cobble together a sense of a small settlement in the snowy countryside with a great economy of eccentric means, blending Dada, the conceptual and Blue Peter all in one. The flotsam and jetsam that have been used ingeniously in order to convey the sense of buildings, trees and rocks introduce a rich humour, yet also point to the culture and history of the readymade in art. For Raedecker has deliberately eschewed a reliance on the painterly mark, on the tradition of oils in the landscapes of yore, preferring instead to capture the scene through a witty yet sparse and spare assemblage of objects and materials. There is something flamboyantly Informel about this solution to the dilemma faced by the contemporary artist trying to see how best to react to the challenge of the blank canvas in the world after Ab Ex and Warhol.

It is the spareness of this landscape that lends Somewhere its enchanting power. This is a work soaked in atmosphere. The largely empty canvas, which comes to recall a winter landscape, gives a sense of exposure, of bleakness, of isolation. At the same time, the simplicity of the image allows it to lay claim to the viewer's familiarity: these objects and buildings are simple enough to chime into the memories of almost anyone who looks at it, an effect that Raedecker heightens by using source images that are culled from film, from catalogues, from magazines and even from the artistic canon itself. This familiarity is likewise hinted at by the title we may not be able to put our finger on exactly where this scene is, but we are filled with the distinct sense that it exists Somewhere... And this is all the more ironic considering the mix and match means by which Raedecker combines elements of source images with various materials in order precisely to conjure this effect.