University Campus Suffolk

Light & Flesh

There is a relationship between light and flesh which has run throughout art history. During January I attended a talk on the Italian Renaissance held by lecturer John Sheeran. I found this lecture really useful in expanding my knowledge of historical paintings – learning how artists used to paint and looking at ‘painting’s’ journey. Ultimately I feel this knowledge can only strengthen my project.

The first artwork which was discussed was ‘Crucifix’ c1280-5 by Canabue. This example struck me immediately in terms of my subject. There is such a huge sense of muscular structure created through the use of light and shadow. It’s not all about texture, fibre and surface.

I feel in this image there is a feeling of iridescent skin and something undeniably human about this rendering of flesh. From this I decided I wanted to gather images of my own skin looking at the effect of light. I think this will help me get a better idea of the volume and the planes of the body and face.

As well as these aspects and the historical context of flesh and light for myself there is an emotional context. I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder and recently I have acquired a lamp to act as a sunshine supplement.

This is a video of me in front of the lamp. I wanted to document the bright light on my skin. I was looking at my skin in whilst videoing this, studying how it changes and moves. I was then able to take stills to paint from.

The above still from my documentation of my flesh infront of SAD lamp is an image I plan to paint from in the future. I chose this image as it still includes my open mouth and teeth – a subject I am not ready to leave yet.

I have been asking myself, if I introduce light into my paintings do I expect them to have an effect on my viewer?

The religious paintings perhaps did this? What was the effect ? There was a lot of gold and light. A glow. An element or awe? The Sublime?

Light & Flesh

Through being interested in the artists I am interested in (most of which use active paint) I have focused on similar areas to them in my exploration of flesh e.g screaming mouths – opening flesh – layers.

I have been experimenting with various approaches to try and develop my painterly language, such as scale, colour palette, materials and ways of looking at my subject ( photographs, life and mirrors).

For this image I continued working on paper – this came out of the spontaneity of this paintings creation. I was over tired and felt emotionally strained and wanted to work with image of my silent screaming face – the subject fitted with how I felt – the idea of an inner battle. No-one can see or feel our emotions only us.

The paper was readily available and I had an urge to work on a large scale – my emotions felt so big and monstrous on the inside, I wanted to express something as large and as violent as what I was feeling. The large role of paper in my studio allowed that.

I worked quickly and frenzied on this image – a state of in the moment-ness. Although it was spontaneous and pretty unthought out, all my previous experimentation and what I had learnt fro that entered the work. It came out almost with out thinking which is what I had hoped would happen.

Because of the familiarity of my subject I attacked it with confidence (Bacon was documented as saying his process was like a battle with the canvas). I read a violent and unapologetic language in my mark-making as a result of this.

I believe this came as a result of my emotion. There is a rawness in the application and also the colours are sharp. These expressive, innate mark-makings > splashed, dragged, scraped ink and paint melded in to shapes and marks that resembled my screaming face.

“Bacon would begin, that is to say, with one intention and would then be led by the nature of the mark on the canvas to end up with quite another.” (Russell, 1971).

Whilst I was painting this I felt in touch with my skin and how it feel at its most vulnerable. Perhaps this is because my mental state felt vulnerable and this created a duality with the physical aspect of myself. I have rendered the paint broken – you can see through to different areas of paint and bare paper – much like in Saville’s Trauma series. I feel this acts like a complex conversation – the marks lead you across the surface of the painting.

Through researching my dissertation I know that in the process of painting Rosetta (2005-06), Saville covered the canvas in mark-making and staining etc before adding the figurative elements > flesh developed out of the purely abstract, painterly aspects. Similarly to the work of Cecily Brown (e.g. ‘The Girl Who Had Everything’, 1998), an artist who is said to walk the tight rope between figuration and abstraction. Her painterly marks make up disembodied sexual limbs and bits of anatomy – this is figuration coming out of abstraction. This is something I want to keep at the back of mind during this project as I have found this tension between expressive marks and elements of subject can create active paint.

From this point I want to look further into areas of my emotion but also areas of traditional depictions of flesh – such as flesh and light.