Painting has had the threat of being rendered obsolete since the
invention of photography in the 1830s, when Paul Delaroche announced: “From
today painting is dead.” In the 1980’s two essays were written about the death of painting; Douglas
Crimp’s paper ‘The End of Painting (1981) and Yves-Alain Bois’ work ‘Painting
the task of mourning’ (1986), but paradoxically during this decade painting was
seeing a revival with artists such as David Salle and Julian Schnabel gaining
celebrity status. Since then painting has continued to be revived.
I paint to make sense of things
that interest and intrigue me. As Alison
Gingeras argues, ‘Memory is often triggered by the banal’, and the painted
image corresponds more closely to the impression of ‘the brains mnemonic
function’ than photography. Painting also offers me a way to link
between fact and fiction. Charlotte Mullins states: paintings connect us to the ‘complex
histories’ of the past. Although I paint images connected with the past, it is my interpretation of the
past. The found images I work from are also interpretations, as are the historical
texts I study. In light of this paint is the perfect medium for me to work in.
Barry
Schwabsky has written about the act of painting: “For the viewer painting is a
noun: the finished object we see. For the painters it can also be a verb: the
activity in which they are engaged.” The
physical act of painting is important to me as I feel the need to connect with
my subject matter through paint and I consider it an extension of my research. For this reason, it was never enough for me
simply to source a photograph or illustration depicting women during the past
and display that as my final piece of art.
No comments:
Post a Comment