Don't Judge Me

While it seems everyone else is obsessing about the new and the now, I've recently been obsessing about the old and the historical. OK, maybe not just recently. My work has always centered around my interest in the history of painting and its contemporary relevance. But I finally got up the courage to go beyond just looking at images of the Old Masters, and extend my experiments in process to include some of the academic techniques of painting that have secretly held my curiosity (I can hear the contemporary painters GASP-ing in horror!). But I just wanted to know: how do they get such refined surfaces? how do they paint all that delicate lace and those reams of diaphanous ruffles? Can I legitimately call myself a painter and not know how to do these things?! (I can hear all the painters yelling at me -- "yes! of course you can!") But for me, I just couldn't. I had to know -- and actually try to do it, even if not masterfully.

Since no one actually taught me how to use oil paint, I have basically taught myself an alla prima method that has given my work a loose brushy style. I like the effects I've been able to achieve so far, but lately I've been feeling limited in my technique. In my new paintings, I want the surface to be more ethereal, more delicate, but still strong and complex. So I secretly signed up for a mini-workshop to learn the basics of traditional oil painting. In particular, I wanted to learn more about the glazing techniques that create such soft and mysterious surfaces (and that are usually skipped over at art school, dismissed as too time-consuming and old-fashioned).

Here are the results of my preliminary efforts:

My preliminary copy of Ingres' portrait. I won't refine my painting any further. I get the point. But kinda cool, isn't it? Whenever I do something I didn't think I could do, it feels like magic.

I know this is generally considered very passé in the contemporary painting world, but can I admit how fun it was? The final glazing step (which I only got to on the face) was a revelation. I have such a naturally light touch to my hand that this technique seemed made for me -- soft tiny brushes, strokes as light as air, veils of glossy color. SO FUN! Not that my paintings are suddenly going to start looking like Ingres'. For me, this meticulous old process made me not only understand so much more about the techniques of some of my favorite Old Masters like Velasquez and Goya, but opened my eyes (and abilities - and/or perhaps just confidence?) to so many more possibilities in the application of paint in my own work. My new paintings are already in the works. Nothing like a quick blast from the past to help catapult me into the future.

I painted that!! A close-up look at the glazing effects in my copy of Ingres' portrait.

In The Flesh

I admit I am slightly tortured by the idea that 99% of the people who will see my work will not be seeing the real thing.  They will see it on a screen with different brightness and color settings than I see on my screen, and they will have to imagine how this little digital avatar might look in the flesh, so to speak.  And indeed, "in the flesh" seems the apt expression.  They will not see how the light reflects off the oily mushy paint strokes, how the color changes and shifts depending on whether the sun is beaming through the window or dimmed incandescent lights are quietly liberating it from the dark.  They will not see how big it is, how each face is larger than life size, how the painting stares at you as you wander around it, how the whole painting relates to their body.  They will not be able to look at it from different angles, from different distances, to move around the painting and experience the image collapsing into abstract details as they approach closer and closer.

Walter Benjamin described the work of art has having an "aura", and famously warned of the consequences of the future omnipotence of the reproduction.  California artist Robert Irwin never wanted his paintings to be photographed, since "Irwin felt that a photograph could capture none of what the painting was about and everything that it was not about.  That is, a photograph could convey image but not presence."*  For me, that seems true of all art that manifests itself as a physical object.  I heard Chuck Close say one time that the modern perspective of the history of art was not an examination of the history of painting but merely the history of slides -- frozen, stale reproductions, where all emphasis is given to image and little else.

One of the greatest compliments I can get for my work is, "it looks so much better in real life!".  I love having that experience myself -- of anticipating a particular experience with a work that I've seen online and then just being blown away when I get to see the actual work.  I had that visceral thrill most recently when I went to see Mark Grotjahn's spectacular exhibit in New York at Anton Kern this past summer.  Unreal.  So real.  Of course, too often, it can go the other way -- sadly, some paintings are much more impressive in reproduction.  I'll refrain from giving examples.

Here are a few different versions of one of my recent paintings ("Veiled", 48" x 28", oil on canvas).  Each image is "accurate" according to particular screens I have viewed them on.  I don't know what you see.  Each one of them is only an idea of the painting.  I wish it could be more.  I wish you could see the real thing -- in the flesh.

   

* From Lawrence Weschler's amazing book on Robert Irwin, "Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees"

Reflecting on the Image

In the last week, I've been to a couple of shows/events that have dealt with the relationship of painting to digital technologies (including photography): the show and panel discussion "Facing the Screen" at the University of Toronto, and the exhibition "Beautiful Fictions" at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

I should have blogged sooner about my response to these exhibitions, but painting has been (and is) consuming me these days. But I don't want to forget some of the key ideas that sparked my interest. So for today, I'll begin with a brief mish mash of some of the ideas from the "Facing the Screen" exhibition.

At the show's panel discussion, artist Michel Daigneault spoke of the screen as a "double skin" which can be penetrated through details of the image to expose the first skin, ie. the paint. My work has always emphasized the details of an image pictorially, and in my most recent work, the painterly details in the surface are taking on a new prominence. I like the metaphor of a "double skin" since in my work now, I am questioning the screen not only as a technological skin but also as a type of mask that conceals certain desires and vulnerabilities.

Metaphors of the screen often reference a type of reflection, as mentioned by Daigneault with respect to the work of Peter Doig (see photo posted above). I admit I have not looked at Doig's work in this light, but now it seems obvious. Certainly the association of the screen and reflections is a natural one, since the reflective surface multiplies the real by way of an image. Repetition of an image is commonly used to reference technological reproduction, and has always payed a critical role in my work. But now that the images I am working with focus on images of the body, the notion of reflection and references to the mirror is an important conceptual step backward for me (backward in the sense of moving from an emphasis on the digital reproduction to the mirror's crude reflection). An exploration of the digital screen's relationship to painting undoubtedly remains in my work, but the rich associations of the mirror (with vanity, beauty, solitude, confrontation, etc) are giving my work a more sensual, emotional resonance.

Not The Same

My latest painting: 45" x 33", oil on canvas (no title as of yet)

Untitled, 45" x 33", oil on canvas, Amanda Clyne

Technically, my process is to (1) take a photograph, (2) turn it into a type of painting that (3) I photograph, and then (4) turn into an actual painting, which (5) I then photograph in order to show it to a remote audience. And yet, the point of my work is largely lost when not experienced in the flesh. For me, the work of art that I produce is complete after step 4. Step 5 is merely out of necessity (and desire) to share my work with more people. But the experience of the painting is so different to this digitally distributed image - the scale of the work to the human body, the sensuousness of the oil paint, the warmth of the light and color, the varying views when close up or far away. So much of the experience is lost when re-converted back into a photographed image. I always want a constant disclaimer on my photographed work: " It looks different in real life." Real life. If more people see work as a photographed painting on a screen, is that not the "real life" with which I am forced to contend? Do paintings have a greater significance as paintings or as photographs of painted images - and if so, must we paint for the screen experience rather than the human experience, or is there still value in anticipating and working toward a physical confrontation between viewer and painting?

Girls, Girls, Girls

My painting is definitely changing. I seemed to have turned a corner somewhere, and now all I want to paint is girls. Boys just don't seem to interest me as much these days (artistically speaking).

Recovering from an exhausting month of travels and painting, today I amused myself with Fashion Television re-runs. One episode showcased the work of French photographer Bettina Rheims (whose photographs I've posted here). Her work is amazing. Portraits of the feminine, they exude the complexities of female sexuality and desire. The more I looked at her work and heard her speak about it, the more I wanted to pick up my camera and take photos of my own. I was fascinated to read that once Francis Bacon had achieved commercial success, he began to commission photographs from a professional photographer so he could specify particular poses and expressions that he wanted to use in his paintings, giving him more control than he had with the reproductions he so often used as sources. As I find myself increasingly occupied with the figure and particularly interested in portraiture, I am wanting more and more to create my own images. The technical challenges involved in such a venture overwhelm me at the moment, but there must be a way. It may dramatically alter the subject matter of my work, but perhaps not. I guess I won't really know until I try.

Saved By Elizabeth Taylor

After hours of playing with images and working with more and more complicated compositions, I realized that I was sucking the emotional content out of the images by making them far too cerebral. While looking for images that were more couture-related, I came across this iconic image of Elizabeth Taylor, and was immediately reminded of the now even-more iconic interpretation by Andy Warhol (this is the painting that Hugh Grant sold for $zillions a couple years ago). Because Warhol's work shares many of the same concerns as my work, I loved the idea of creating my own translation of the original image. I have chosen to do two paintings, each derived from a different fragment of the original image. After making my ink prints of these fragments and photographing each print repeatedly over a few hours, I combined the various versions into one image. But the compositions are simple - much simpler than anything I've painted in quite some time. I think they have a dreamy quality that I've been wanting in my work but haven't achieved so far. (Sorry - I'm not going to post my composed images until they're painted.)

It's made me rethink the idea that an excess of detail can seduce the viewer to look longer. With all the visual excess we face everyday, I wonder if painting would do better to exploit its stillness rather than fight against it. Painting can seduce the viewer with a type of image that offers a quieter source of contemplation rather than yet another visual bombardment. The abstract painter David Reed disagrees, arguing: "Feelings start with motion. Seeing films and TV make this necessary. I don't think we can go back to a notion of stillness or balance in painting and the kind of contemplation this implies." (David Ryan, Talking Painting: Dialogues with Twelve Contemporary Abstract Painters, p. 204). I'm not sure yet whether I disagree with this statement now (even though I relied on it in support of my thesis), or whether the concept of motion is more complex than his statement perhaps implies. Reed works with fragmentation in his work, but the fragmentation is quite limited. Perhaps the juxtaposition of two fragments implies enough motion to excite the contemporary eye.

I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens when I translate it all into paint.

Back To My Roots

So! An exciting day today so far. In processing a new image for my next painting, I was letting the ink run/move/drip on each print (I really liked the drippy/dissolved woman in the recently failed painting - photo in August 3 post), but today the results just weren't what I wanted. The distortions, particularly in the faces, were too dark, too disturbing. To clarify some of the facial distortions, I began to crop details of the image before printing them. The details are SO much more interesting. The fragments become not just mere fragments of an image, but new images unto themselves. And the enlarged fragments allow the ink to separate/bleed/blend in more complex and unpredictable ways - and offer so much more visual information from which to paint. But the best part is that I think these latest images can be really strong images on their own - before I've even painted them. It's made me think that photographs of these ink prints could be a really interesting addition to my work - and create an interesting dialogue with the paintings that translate the combination of these inky fragments into paint. I also think it will begin to clarify/emphasize the important role photography has in my work - offering a painted image that manually "reproduces" a photograph, and a photographed image of a mechanically "improvised" image.