Confessions of and challenging self

Be honest, seek the truth, make freely.
 Gradually I come into myself,
 a fragment more honest
 about the lies that I’ve told myself each day.
 It’s still okay to hide just a little.
 
Affect[1], affective sensation is what I seek. After too long living lies, I yearn for affect. Exhausted confessional affect embodied within each tirelessly wilful movement. A language which is translated through body to surface. “Sensation is what is being painted…what is being painted on the canvas is the body, not insofar as it is represented as an object, but insofar as it is experienced at sustaining this sensation.”[2] Trauma[3] is said to present itself “in the form of a symptom or somatic (physical) disturbance”[4].  It is within short, rigid palpation-like movements that I see my fear embodied before my eyes. I am confronted with my most honest side that bleeds through the pigments on to the surface. I am not a performance artist by any means, but I’m interested in the performative aspect of painting, the embodied affect of the traumatised body[5] and mind.
 
This is where my journey of healing begins.
Catharsis.
 
Merleau-Ponty describes art as the artists manifestation of meaning which is born from “the flow of [the artist’s] individual life”[6]
Perhaps it is for this reason that my subject matter typically takes on an autobiographical filter. In the sense that, everything I paint must have had some kind of emotional impact on me or capture a feeling in a particular moment. It is for this reason that my paintings are born from photographs. For me it is crucial that I capture something which feels untainted, sincere to its core. Years of hidden truth does that to a person. These years left me feeling stripped of control over my own life, due to this I have become someone who is soothed by control. My creative process reflects this trait, yet it also must be challenged with prescriptive nano-injections of chaos in order to not become something which stifles and suffocates, becoming devoid of feeling, and hence meaning. The seeking out of sensation is rudimentary for me. A symbiotic relationship is created in this process; between myself and the act of painting. The activity adopts a cathartic role as the painting slowly comes to life, each carefully image extracted hue constructs something which I feel can communicate the internalised evocative fear that I cannot put into words;
that I cannot speak of;
that I cannot express in any other way;
that has made me dumb and paralysed.
Tongue cut out.
Flopping on the floor,
Dead fish.
 
Each painting exists as a detail orientated manifestation of visuals from every-day surroundings, typically measuring no larger than arms width, and of late much more intimate in size. A severed tree trunk that still grows tall rendered in muddy greys, undergrowth greens and chalky pale neutrals; as though its attacker changed their mind halfway, its existence allowed to continue. Pale meat like mushrooms that sprout from two moss coated legs that had only ever been trunks, to which I developed a mother-like attachment to as it neared completion. The sickly complexion of uncomfortably close scarred body parts painted on wood retains a sense of sentimentality within an oval silhouette, reminiscent of a photo held dear. At times I play with the uncanny[7], replacing body parts with mushrooms, or an emotion with the image of an object. How does an object hold trauma? It is not so much the object, rather an introspective analysis of self in a moment whilst I perceive that object. The connecting of the unconnected through perception and the subconscious mind. These images become visual pockets for contemplation, revealing themselves as personal truths. Freud contests that the hysterical woman suffers from her memories, specifically traumatic memory. The trauma which keeps her tied to the past is expressed through dreams and hallucinations.[8] It may be for this reason that there have been times my dreams have served as inspiration to my practice. I believe our subconscious withholds our most personal truths and answers. I long for answers about myself and about the world around me, answers which I have chased since early childhood. “Trauma that is, does not simply serve as record of the past but precisely registers the force of an experience that is not yet fully owned “[9]  
 
Merleau-Ponty places the artwork as an object; with its reason for existence being found in how it was expressed. Due to the artwork having its own non-conforming reason for being, it gives a “fresh or unconventional understanding of the event depicted”[10]. The hysterical woman speaks in a language that not even she herself fully understands; there is a language there, but no one yet speaks it.”[11]
 
I tend to feel the need to put up a boundary; a protective shield around myself, of language that masks and shrouds inner most personal fears, which haunt my mornings and dreams. To rest from this would be beautiful, liberating, and terrifying. To no longer cower behind language of academia, contextualising my trauma.
Commodifying my fears.
Fear to be bought and sold
Long after daisies sprout from my head.
Another painting.
 
Words alone cannot say what I mean, but they have always been a dear secondary language to my soul. I challenge this desire of mine to hide behind academic language in the recent decision to include hand-written short poems with my visual practice. This is something which I feel has aided greatly in enriching the affective quality of the images I create.
The slightly unnerving, dark under-bellied presence of Michael Borremans’ work captivated me as soon as I discovered it. He speaks about his work having both a charm or beauty to it, while also being a disturbance to the viewer. “Beauty with the charm of a razor”. Borremans is only satisfied with his work when it moves him or cuts him at a certain point, in his own words “a knife in the eye”.[12] It is the enigmatic presence of these paintings and those of other contemporary artists such as Caroline Walker and Alison Watt that enthral me to continue my artistic pursuit of the empathic response and enquiry into the affective quality of painting.
 
 
 


[1] Massumi, B. (2002) “Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation”

[2] ed. Patton, P; Smith, D.W., (1996), “Deleuze: A Critical Reader”, P.45

[3] Jamili Bardaran, L.; Roshanzamir, Z. (2017). “Postmodern Feminism: Cultural Trauma in Construction of Female Identities in Virginia Woolf’s The Waves” Intro

[4] Cranny-Francis, A; et al. (2003) “Gender Studies Terms and Debates”, P.209

[5] Van der Kolk, B. (2014) “The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma”

[6] Merleau-Ponty, M (1964) “Cézanne’s Doubt”, P.19
 
[7] Freud, S. (1919) “The Uncanny”

[8] Cranny-Francis, A; et al. (2003) “Gender Studies Terms and Debates”, P.209

[9] Caruth, C., (1995) “Trauma: Explorations in Memory” P.150

[10] Matthews, E. (2002) “The Philosophy of Merleau-Ponty – Continental European Philosophy”, P.137

[11] Cranny-Francis, A; et al. (2003) “Gender Studies Terms and Debates”, P.209

[12] De Bruyn, G (2009) “Michael Borremans: A Knife in the Eye” Documentary