Painting a two-way mirror.
The lens through which painting -the action not the object- is not a lens but a two way mirror. A treacherous image.
The painter standing before the looking glass sees not only her painting on the mirror’s surface -the now- but also projecting back into a liminal space well beyond the mirror’s surface -the future- a window exit; simultaneously she and her painting as ghostly reflections lay claim to an existence in a once-but-no-longer-concrete space in which she stands, history backing her up, a reflection of the surface reflection floating in the space behind the glass -the past- trapped in that space with both present and future. [Fig. 1]
Fig. 1 A tentatively drawn diagram of the artist in front of The Large Glass.
As reflections, none of these images of painting are free of distortions. The existence of each is disrupted by the reality that it is not real still on display.[Fig. 2] If truths are grounded in reality then not a single one of these paintings, lacking in realness, is true. If truth is grounded in fact, and here the fact being none of these images have a reality beyond their existence as reflections bouncing back and forth, amplified in the space between, then in that space these images are truthful and authentic, as authenticity is based in fact.
Fig. 2 Detail photograph of On Display (2017). Robyn Thomas. An installation at The University of Rhode Island, Alan Shawn Feinstein College of Education and Professional Studies. November - December 2017.
The fact of the matter is that truth and authenticity of painting as action and object can only be found by both the artist and the spectator in the acknowledgement of the existential and experiential conditions of painting by which they are confronted with when looking into the glass. They cannot be found in the action or object themselves or conditions such as style, market, or a associative identity forming either, but only their condition as a reflection in the glass.
Fig. 3 The Treachery of Images (This is Not a Pipe). René Magritte. 1928-29. Oil on canvas. 63.5 cm x 93.98 cm. Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
If, according to Magritte [Fig. 3], the object in the painting is only that, the depicted object, then painting reflected in the glass is only that, reflected painting. This is not a pipe anymore than this is not ‘not a pipe’ but an image of a pipe painted onto a canvas. This is not painting anymore than this is not ‘not painting’ but an image of painting reflected into The Large Glass. [Fig. 4]
Fig. 4 On the 100th anniversary of the R. Mutt scandal, the artist photographs herself in front of The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass). Is that Mr. Mutt fleeing the scene? Philadelphia Museum of Art, April 2017.