Notes: Important sentences from my Summer 2017 residency presentation and how my understanding of what I am doing has developed through the process of preparing it.

Fragments from the presentation text:

The title of my research project: Playing Painting Personas.

I’ve compressed the title to just these three words in order to encompass the three elements most important to my research.

Together, the three words of the title describe for me what I am beginning to formulate as the basis for what might be termed a type of ‘experimental methodology’.

I am a painter; first and foremost my methodology is painting.

As an experimental methodology, a painting methodology can be understood as referring to the experiential ‘experiments’ conducted by the painter using the methods, and materials or tools of painting which results in products or objects, i.e. the paintings.

My painting methodology can be understood as ‘experimental’ by the ways I engage with various methods and tools to challenge customary knowledge and practices of painting from points of view other than my own within the parameters of my methodological framework of ‘playful painting’.

My concern is with the process rather than the product.

Therefore I will not being showing you the paintings as ‘paintings’ today, rather as fragments of my process ...

… the foundation of my research question: How might personas in conjunction with developmental concepts of play applied within a painting practice contribute as a tool or method to the formation of a playful painting methodology?

D. W. Winnicott Playing and Reality (1971)

… the origins of creativity and illusion in the playing which develops in a liminal, transitional space established between the nursing infant and mother. … the satisfaction which comes through playing in that space comforts and sustains a person throughout life; and out of this satisfying experience of playing, creativity is first manifest.

… the importance of play and the liminal, transitional space in which it first occurs, along with plays’ relevance to the development of personal identity, remains vital to creative development, and to the development of my project.

… how might ‘play’ -as a word, as an action or gesture, and as an idea- inherent to creative practices, applied as a method or tool in a painting practice, impact the practice and contribute to our understanding of issues of identity explored through a or this, painting practice?

My task: to articulate an argument for ‘playful painting’ with personas -as a tool/method within this methodology.

It is in the painting (process!) between play (process!) and personas (process!) where this argument will be made.

As a tool and method within a painting practice, the persona is more than just a mask or character I put on and take off; it is the projector and receptor of identity. This dual-purpose makes personas both a means to and a method for the exploration of identity.

… we feel that in order to begin to be understood the work should be experienced by the viewer ‘in the flesh’, so to speak.

… an enhanced slideshow with video elements ... the intention is to widen the perceptual gap between the work -in this case paintings- and their representation as images projected on a screen. In widening the gap there should be no confusing the images shown for anything other than what they are, projections of small fragments of physical works which are not here, but also not not here.

framing and editing … an indication of certain aspects of our process…

a short poem by Melusine runs through, … The second text, which interrupts Melusine’s poem ...

’Fresh Widow’ was made by Marcel Duchamp and signed in 1920, nonetheless with copyright, by his alter ego ‘Rose Selavy’ (here spelled with one ‘r’).

… a reduced scale version of the traditional …

... obstructing the metaphorical view through the window … associated with illusionistic painting...

With the change of three letters, Duchamp transforms … a pun …

The inscription at the base, "COPYRIGHT ROSE SELAVY 1920," is the first time the name of Duchamp's female alter ego appears on one of his works.”

... the fragments of paintings ... a nod to Marcel and Rrose, whose shadows’ are cast across my project, and out from under which I seek to project shadows of my own making.

Thoughts that have come out of the process of writing the presentation, presenting the work in slightly different format to others, and writing about what has been revealed to me by this.

...it came up in the feedback to my presentation in the Presentation workshop … how it might be interesting to have a or the personas present the work.

This came up in conversation with ac in January, and it was something I did give quite a lot of thought to these past months; I found it interesting to hear it from others.

I had considered having others ‘act’ the role of a persona and deliver a presentation I had prepared. I ran through various scenarios in my head, and made notes, but it did not feel ‘right’.

I had finally just came to the realization in the past week why having any of the personas present doesn’t work (at least for now, but most likely ever).

I could not picture any other person behind the mask other than myself. This is interesting as it made me aware of the difference between the personas as characters as in a play and alter egos. I am obviously the person behind the mask if I cannot picture anyone else there. At the same time, the personas are more than masks I put on and take off. This is where the relationship of David Bowie to David Jones as written about by Philip Auslander in Performing Glam Rock became clear to me in terms of my own research/application of personas in my practice. The idea that David Bowie is not David Jones, while simultaneously David Bowie is not not David Jones, is akin to the role of the painter in Wollheim’s description of what makes painting art. The painter is not the spectator, but the painter is also not not the spectator. In both cases there needs to be a slipping between the role being performed and the identity of the player performing it.

This is difficult because of the not me, not not me factor

This raise the question for me where this slippage occurs. In what space? And how does this impact both roles and identities?

I could not have Melusine speak her poem as the soundtrack to the video. She may write but she has no physical presence like Franzi or Petra, so how can she have a voice in this sense? If I presented Melusine as a character to an actor, then the actor would bring a voice to Melusine. This happens to some degree when I write as Melusine, I give her a ‘voice’ -or better, Melusine’s ‘voice’ emerges from the process of writing not as Robyn, but also not not as Robyn but as Melusine.

In the meeting between ac, myself and RM on July 25, RM brought up the notion of the personas as a performance occurring in the studio space -rather than performative- and the process (as a whole) as performative. After reading Schechner’s Performance Studies: an Introduction I had slowly begun viewing the personas in this way. That is approximately the time when I began to ‘let go’ of the idea that the personas could be performed by someone else. If they were not so bound to the space in which they are performed, it might be possible for them to exist outside of that space, but they are not.  If the space in which they exist is the liminal (and physical to a degree) space of my practice-process having any of them come out of that space to present or engage with others in some way becomes questionable to what their identity actually is. What might be interesting (or maybe become a wormhole) is what would happen if another person entered the space and within that space performed Petra, Franzi or Melusine. It is not something I think should be pursued at this time, but it is good to consider. As Melusine exists in the ‘ether’ she might be the first one to try this with. What would happen if someone else had access to Melusine’s email account or FB profile and then started to write to me on her behalf? How would this be set up within the parameters of my research? Is it someplace I’d wish to go?

There is one way the personas are performed for others, and that is by engaging either with the work, or responding to their work or emails. However, this only happens by my controlling access, making the personas available only for those whom I’ve invited into the space (liminal and physical) … or rather, invited to play along (and to what degree, for now). Essentially as tools for me the personas are like one of my paintbrushes, or a piece of paper which I would not be likely to have present on my behalf anymore than I would invite others to swing the brush in my painting practice. Yet I do try to get the viewer to engage with the work in ways in which I am not in complete control, for example the Sonata for Psyche Tattooing is about just this idea of letting the viewer take over the brush and become [not] the painter, but [not, not] the painter.

Circling back to the beginning of this idea of having the personas come out of the liminal space and present I think this definitely remains an open question of how and why, what is most relevant in terms of the practice research? Who knows, maybe next time one of the others will present?!