Ufer Studios Berlin, Germany July 31, 2017 Transart Institute Summer Residency 2017
The purpose of my presentation this evening is: first, to introduce my research project to those for whom this is all new. Second, to provide an update on my research since winter residency and provide a glimpse of some of the artwork produced since then. Finally, the third and most important part for me, I will use this presentation as a forum for taking the research out of the studio, exposing it to thoughts and questions from other points of view- namely, yours.
Let’s start with the title of my research project: Playing Painting Personas.
My title has changed slightly from the working title I presented at winter residency. I have eliminated the reference to ‘self-reflective methodology’ and I’ve compressed the title to just these three words in order to encompass the three elements most important to my research: playing, painting, and personas.
Since New York, six months further into my research, I am not yet ready to present a fully developed methodology, however, I will tell you how my understanding of my methodology for this research project has developed out of my practice to this point. 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’. At the end of the presentation I would be interested to hear your understanding of this in relation to these words and the fragment of works I will show.
Let’s look now at the second word in the middle of the title: Painting.
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 indicative of the smattering of questions, words, or thoughts arising out of my practice as I seek through the work to address 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?
In my practice I apply numerous methods and tools common to other painters, such as pigments, binders, solvents, brushes, sticks, or other utensils used to smear, drip or spray paint onto any given surface. This common painting methodology may include formal methods of design and technique, as well as the application of methods associated from fields within and outside of the visual arts pertaining to the research of historical and contemporary knowledge of ideas, individuals, and critical theory. My painting methodology includes these methods as well as others incorporating aspects of reflection, performance, and play. The word ‘play’ brings me to the first word of my title: playing.
A basic understanding of playing often denotes an activity undertaken for pleasure, enjoyment, or recreation - just for fun - rather than for serious or practical purposes.
Play is more complex than this. If you have ever observed a child or animal at play then you might have noticed ‘play’ and ‘playing’ can be serious business. It is this type of play that contributing to human development which interests me and what I seek to incorporate into my painting methodology.
Quick show of hands: How many here now have either been told, heard another artist be told, or suggested to another artist to ‘go play’ with an idea or material? How many have referred to what you are doing in your practice as ‘playing’ with something...maybe an idea or an object that is challenging you in some way?
In the 2013 edition of the book Performance Studies: An Introduction author Richard Schechner cites English psychoanalyst and developmental psychologist D. W. Winnicott in his 1971 book Playing and Reality as locating the origins of creativity and illusion in the playing which develops in a liminal, transitional space established between the nursing infant and mother. According to Schechner, Winnicott’s position is that 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. (Schechner 99-100) Since Winnicott’s writing the relevance of the actual space between mother and nursing infant could be, in numerous ways, contested; however, 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.
This brings me back to my point in asking those questions a moment ago: 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?
Over the course of this research project it will be my task as part of my own creative practice to articulate an argument for ‘playful painting’ with personas. It is here, in the painting between play and personas, where the conceptual will merge with the experimental in my process. And this brings me to the third word in my title: Personas.
Personas are a key tool in the methods of my painting practice. I apply these alternative selves as a means by which to make multiple viewpoints accessible to myself during acts of painting. 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.
To sum up the significance of the title and its relevance to the methodology, methods and tools I am developing in this practice research project, and to help you to understand a bit more of the aims and objectives of my project, I’d like to share the opening sentences from the ’Description of Project’ I submitted just after winter residency for RDC1, the first of three milestones along this MPhil/PhD journey.
“This artistic research project examines the multifacetedness of identity through the objects and acts of painting. It seeks to enhance paintings as metaphors of identity by establishing a playful incorporation of personas in the studio practice for the questioning and contextualization of identity to address what their impact is on the form, content and daily practice of painting and establishing a novel approach for the questioning and contextualization of identity through painting. The objective of this project is to reveal what knowledge of identity might be gained and communicated by this painter through an atypical, analytical approach in the studio; and by studying why painters seldom incorporate personas and suggesting how they might employ such personas using tools and methods from other creative fields to add a variety of perspectives while maintaining a consistent artistic identity.”
As of the January residency I had developed three personas with whom I had begun working: Melusine Van der Weyden, a writer; Franz Ignatius Walsh, a professional artist’s assistant and part-time painter; and Petra Nimm, a painter. I have spent the past winter and spring working primarily with Franzi and Petra in the studio; Melusine comes and goes, but has engaged in writing related tasks and projects.
Because Franzi, Petra, and I are all painters -we make things- we feel that in order to begin to be understood the work should be experienced by the viewer ‘in the flesh’, so to speak. None of us was keen on creating a standard slide show presentation of our work. Together we decided to combine our efforts and present some of the work we have been doing these past few months in the format of what we call an enhanced slideshow with video elements. By doing this 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.
We hope through the framing and editing of the images there is an indication of certain aspects of our process, and the understanding this is not the whole process. Additional perspectives and information can be gained by viewing the various postings on my research website.
Two texts accompany this video. First, a short poem by Melusine run through, it was written based on her understanding of the process and studio dynamics manifested in the work between the personas and myself. The second text, which interrupts Melusine’s poem, is a short poem by Emily Dickinson. Petra has used this poem as the basis of a series of paintings this spring which are shown in the video.
Finally, before showing the video I’d like to present to you a work by Marcel Duchamp which is the source for the videos’ title. ’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’). It is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The description from the museum’s online collection reads:
“Constructed by a carpenter in accordance with Duchamp's instructions, Fresh Widow is a reduced scale version of the traditional floor-length French window. Duchamp covered the glass panes with panels of black leather, obstructing the metaphorical view through the window that is associated with illusionistic painting. With the change of three letters, Duchamp transforms "French window" into the title "Fresh Widow," a pun that points to the recent war and the bawdy tradition of amorous (or "fresh") widows of soldiers. 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.”
Through its title this 3 minute video along with the fragments of paintings it presents is 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.