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This PhD by portfolio comprises of a critical commentary reflecting on a visual art practice form... more This PhD by portfolio comprises of a critical commentary reflecting on a visual art practice form 1988 to 2013 with a particular focus on four series of recent work: 'Dream' (2011-13) [Appendix B], 'Wide Shut' (2013) [Appendix D], 'Self contain' (2012-13) [Appendix C] and 'L'Inconnue de la Seine' (2010-) [Appendix A] and two exhibitions, Absurd Impositions (2011, V&A's Museum of Childhood) and Self Contained (2013, Freud Museum London). In exploring how the work suggests 'the vision of others' (Hilty, 1996) might be accommodated I exploit the meanings of the word vision. Initially concerned with how the work represents sight and looking, that is both how people become objects of sight as well as how thye see, I explore vision as the formation and communication of an individual outlook or view of the world, that is as dreams, deisres and sense of identity. To map this complexity, I suggest looking, materiality, and narrativity as the core concerns of my painting. The critical commentary is in three parts. The first, Vision, explores the ways in which portraiture opens up an awareness of the ethics of looking and depiction. Framed by notions of a gendered, embodied gaze explored in my earlier painting, I discuss the dynamics of sight within the painted portrait, in particular the reciprocity of look between the artist who originates the depiction, the subject depicted and the viewer for whom the work is made. This includes a discussion of Michael Fried's notion of 'absorption' and in particular what this might mean for depictions of children. The second part, 'Re-Vision', critically assesses how the 'touch' of drawing relates to sight and sightlessness in portraiture. This examination of the materiality of the work articulated how the processes of making inflect the work's meaning. It reflects on the use of the photograph and doubled imagery and on the different forms of mark making and geture employed in the drawings that I propose are able to bring a particular quality of ambivalence to a meditation on maternal gaze. 'Imaging Narrative', the last section, examines strategies for facilitating the reading of text as image and image as text. It explores my material choices, use of juxtaposition, the work's site and a notion of return and how these are deployed to encourage certain interpretations. Here I make a claim for a method of material juxtapositions that allows for a literary overshadowing of the visual, allowing the viewer as an active, imaginative part in the construction of meaning. The idea of autobiography as a fiction is utilised (via Anne Wagner and Paul de Man) in relation to self-portraiture and art-work by women, who are positioned by their gender outside their medium's history and heritage. Through the work I argue there is a direct feminist perspective on the depiction of the gendered and maternal gaze. I draw on art historical and literary criticism to elucidate the work's potential for feminist enquiry. Ultimately these reflections tentatively propose that the work, via a feminist reading, might point the way to a recalibration of certain values within contemporary art practice in relation to genre, site and subject, and through the work's relation to portraiture, drawing, museums and children. My conclusion reflects on the difficulty of an ethical representation of others and its consequential dispersed notion of portraiture. However, I also claim that alongside what Maria Walsh has called within these works 'maternalised optics', 'a shared space of intimacy without judgement' [Walsh 2013: 69-76] there is a perverse and violent aspect to the version of the maternal gaze they propose, creating an undercurrent in the work which leads to a productive ambivalence.
De Gruyter eBooks, Dec 16, 2020
Description/Abstract: The context of this presentation is ongoing research into contemporary arti... more Description/Abstract: The context of this presentation is ongoing research into contemporary artists' methods and approaches within their practices. Based on case studies, including work already done as part of the Visual Intelligences Research Project run by Rebecca ...
A small display throughout the V&A Museum of Childhood bringing together the work of nine vis... more A small display throughout the V&A Museum of Childhood bringing together the work of nine visual artists.
Journal of contemporary painting, Apr 1, 2017
This article calls for a reappraisal of the feminist discussion around painting in relation to co... more This article calls for a reappraisal of the feminist discussion around painting in relation to contemporary practices by women, suggesting that all painting by women has something to offer the feminist critical thought. Playfully using Judy Chicago's reflections and strategies as a frame, the article explores how contemporary painters have engaged with the histories and communities of women to form new models of scholarship and practice. It examines the projects of painters Melissa Gordon, Nadia Hebson and the Obscure Secure group (Jacqueline Utley, Hayley Field and Claudia Böse) whose artwork forms a 'live' response to the legacy of little known and undervalued women artists. The article concludes by examining the notion of the painterly gesture and develops a feminist context in which to examine the materiality and processes of painting, with reference to the perspectives of Dana Schutz and Jutta Koether among others. It suggests Helen Molesworth's historically defined quality of ambivalence can be seen resurfacing as a critical position within contemporary painting by women.
Art, Design and Communication in Higher Education, Apr 1, 2014
I.B.Tauris eBooks, 2003
Description/Abstract: I was commissioned by Betterton to contribute a chapter to a compilation of... more Description/Abstract: I was commissioned by Betterton to contribute a chapter to a compilation of ten essays by artists and theoreticians, including writing by theorists engaged with the practice of painting as well as practitioners engaged in theory.
... Franko B, David Birkin, Ansuman Biswas, John Burgess, Matthew Burrows, Tony Carter, Tamsyn Ch... more ... Franko B, David Birkin, Ansuman Biswas, John Burgess, Matthew Burrows, Tony Carter, Tamsyn Challenger, Jules Clarke, Ben Cockett, Susan Collis, Michael Corkrey, A. David Crawforth, Mikey Cuddihy, Shane Cullen, Michael Curran, Judith Dean, Mark Dean, Nicholas ...
I would like to thank Lizzie Fisher for giving me the opportunity to put today's event together. ... more I would like to thank Lizzie Fisher for giving me the opportunity to put today's event together. I am tremendously excited about the prospect of listening to today's speakers. All of them have been very important to my evolving thinking about today's subject and I am very curious to see how their articulations converge in a more public space than my own head! I think today will be quite intense as we have so much to listen to and think about, but I am sure, given the quality of our contributors, that it will be worthwhile experience.
Part of a research project (The Pedagogy of Fine Art) exploring contemporary pedagogy and attitud... more Part of a research project (The Pedagogy of Fine Art) exploring contemporary pedagogy and attitudes to teaching within the fine art subject area.
Exhibition. Twenty artists, including Rebecca Fortnum
This PhD by portfolio comprises of a critical commentary reflecting on a visual art practice form... more This PhD by portfolio comprises of a critical commentary reflecting on a visual art practice form 1988 to 2013 with a particular focus on four series of recent work: 'Dream' (2011-13) [Appendix B], 'Wide Shut' (2013) [Appendix D], 'Self contain' (2012-13) [Appendix C] and 'L'Inconnue de la Seine' (2010-) [Appendix A] and two exhibitions, Absurd Impositions (2011, V&A's Museum of Childhood) and Self Contained (2013, Freud Museum London). In exploring how the work suggests 'the vision of others' (Hilty, 1996) might be accommodated I exploit the meanings of the word vision. Initially concerned with how the work represents sight and looking, that is both how people become objects of sight as well as how thye see, I explore vision as the formation and communication of an individual outlook or view of the world, that is as dreams, deisres and sense of identity. To map this complexity, I suggest looking, materiality, and narrativity as the core concerns of my painting. The critical commentary is in three parts. The first, Vision, explores the ways in which portraiture opens up an awareness of the ethics of looking and depiction. Framed by notions of a gendered, embodied gaze explored in my earlier painting, I discuss the dynamics of sight within the painted portrait, in particular the reciprocity of look between the artist who originates the depiction, the subject depicted and the viewer for whom the work is made. This includes a discussion of Michael Fried's notion of 'absorption' and in particular what this might mean for depictions of children. The second part, 'Re-Vision', critically assesses how the 'touch' of drawing relates to sight and sightlessness in portraiture. This examination of the materiality of the work articulated how the processes of making inflect the work's meaning. It reflects on the use of the photograph and doubled imagery and on the different forms of mark making and geture employed in the drawings that I propose are able to bring a particular quality of ambivalence to a meditation on maternal gaze. 'Imaging Narrative', the last section, examines strategies for facilitating the reading of text as image and image as text. It explores my material choices, use of juxtaposition, the work's site and a notion of return and how these are deployed to encourage certain interpretations. Here I make a claim for a method of material juxtapositions that allows for a literary overshadowing of the visual, allowing the viewer as an active, imaginative part in the construction of meaning. The idea of autobiography as a fiction is utilised (via Anne Wagner and Paul de Man) in relation to self-portraiture and art-work by women, who are positioned by their gender outside their medium's history and heritage. Through the work I argue there is a direct feminist perspective on the depiction of the gendered and maternal gaze. I draw on art historical and literary criticism to elucidate the work's potential for feminist enquiry. Ultimately these reflections tentatively propose that the work, via a feminist reading, might point the way to a recalibration of certain values within contemporary art practice in relation to genre, site and subject, and through the work's relation to portraiture, drawing, museums and children. My conclusion reflects on the difficulty of an ethical representation of others and its consequential dispersed notion of portraiture. However, I also claim that alongside what Maria Walsh has called within these works 'maternalised optics', 'a shared space of intimacy without judgement' [Walsh 2013: 69-76] there is a perverse and violent aspect to the version of the maternal gaze they propose, creating an undercurrent in the work which leads to a productive ambivalence.
De Gruyter eBooks, Dec 16, 2020
Description/Abstract: The context of this presentation is ongoing research into contemporary arti... more Description/Abstract: The context of this presentation is ongoing research into contemporary artists' methods and approaches within their practices. Based on case studies, including work already done as part of the Visual Intelligences Research Project run by Rebecca ...
A small display throughout the V&A Museum of Childhood bringing together the work of nine vis... more A small display throughout the V&A Museum of Childhood bringing together the work of nine visual artists.
Journal of contemporary painting, Apr 1, 2017
This article calls for a reappraisal of the feminist discussion around painting in relation to co... more This article calls for a reappraisal of the feminist discussion around painting in relation to contemporary practices by women, suggesting that all painting by women has something to offer the feminist critical thought. Playfully using Judy Chicago's reflections and strategies as a frame, the article explores how contemporary painters have engaged with the histories and communities of women to form new models of scholarship and practice. It examines the projects of painters Melissa Gordon, Nadia Hebson and the Obscure Secure group (Jacqueline Utley, Hayley Field and Claudia Böse) whose artwork forms a 'live' response to the legacy of little known and undervalued women artists. The article concludes by examining the notion of the painterly gesture and develops a feminist context in which to examine the materiality and processes of painting, with reference to the perspectives of Dana Schutz and Jutta Koether among others. It suggests Helen Molesworth's historically defined quality of ambivalence can be seen resurfacing as a critical position within contemporary painting by women.
Art, Design and Communication in Higher Education, Apr 1, 2014
I.B.Tauris eBooks, 2003
Description/Abstract: I was commissioned by Betterton to contribute a chapter to a compilation of... more Description/Abstract: I was commissioned by Betterton to contribute a chapter to a compilation of ten essays by artists and theoreticians, including writing by theorists engaged with the practice of painting as well as practitioners engaged in theory.
... Franko B, David Birkin, Ansuman Biswas, John Burgess, Matthew Burrows, Tony Carter, Tamsyn Ch... more ... Franko B, David Birkin, Ansuman Biswas, John Burgess, Matthew Burrows, Tony Carter, Tamsyn Challenger, Jules Clarke, Ben Cockett, Susan Collis, Michael Corkrey, A. David Crawforth, Mikey Cuddihy, Shane Cullen, Michael Curran, Judith Dean, Mark Dean, Nicholas ...
I would like to thank Lizzie Fisher for giving me the opportunity to put today's event together. ... more I would like to thank Lizzie Fisher for giving me the opportunity to put today's event together. I am tremendously excited about the prospect of listening to today's speakers. All of them have been very important to my evolving thinking about today's subject and I am very curious to see how their articulations converge in a more public space than my own head! I think today will be quite intense as we have so much to listen to and think about, but I am sure, given the quality of our contributors, that it will be worthwhile experience.
Part of a research project (The Pedagogy of Fine Art) exploring contemporary pedagogy and attitud... more Part of a research project (The Pedagogy of Fine Art) exploring contemporary pedagogy and attitudes to teaching within the fine art subject area.
Exhibition. Twenty artists, including Rebecca Fortnum