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Annotation - CFB

This dossier is a continued exploration of the artists, theories, and cultural contexts that have guided my practice throughout the last two semesters within Critical Frameworks A and B. There is an ongoing theme of figuration throughout this blog, but in the past few months I have begun to focus on what role the body plays, how its appearance changes social contexts, and what it means to depart from the body entirely. My current interest lies within themes of the fragmented body, the abject quality of transition, and the limitless potentials of the body malleable.

A fundamental shift in my practice has been the move from depicting the idealized future outcomes of the body to showing it in a transitional, in flux state of mutation. Evidence of this change appears throughout the dossier, moving from artists like Agi Haines and Joanna Grochowska earlier in this semester to people like Asger Carlsen and Doreen Garner in the latter half. Haines and Grochowska’s work visualizes the idealized outcomes of the future body, produced in a lab-like setting.This scientific approach of depicting the “perfect specimen” lacked the story of how they got there, distancing it from the grotesque, active throes of mutations happening within my work. 

This shift to viewing the body as an active, malleable material in my own practice enticed a desire to find artists that were reducing bodies down to their truest form of materiality, flesh. Carlsen fragments and abstracts the body in a way that allows it to be contextualized as both human and sculpture, exposing its materiality without entirely departing from reality. While Garner’s work uses a similar approach of reduction, she exaggerates the grotesque nature of these forms to create a platform to expose and navigate the boundaries and constructs we apply to the body. 

Another theme that has found its way to the forefront this semester is the role of the artist and what happens when the line between artist and material is blurred. This has offered a discussion of agency in relation to the artist, the body, and the material that is navigated in the works of Carolee Schneeman, Archie Barry, and Philip Brophy. Schneeman offers her body as the work itself, with no differentiation between artist and material. In contrast, Barry creates two separate entities out of the same body, one being the artist as a conductor and the other, his arm, becoming the living being that is the performance. Brophy removes himself from the work almost entirely, taking the role of coordinator or curator while passing full agency to the viewer. As someone that uses my own body as the content of my work, these three artists have become integral on how I navigate my own role in the process and product of my practice. 

Although my own practice remains in the painting medium, much of this dossier investigates artists working within other mediums, more specifically, sculptural, performance, and photographic works. I find looking outside of my medium to be highly informative and it offers me the opportunity to recognize universal themes conducted through many modes of working. 

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Asger Carlsen (at Chinatown New-York City) https://www.instagram.com/p/CVILUhgINL2/?utm_medium=tumblr

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Asger Carlsen (at Chinatown New-York City) https://www.instagram.com/p/CVH6oRdlQmx/?utm_medium=tumblr

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I stumbled upon Carlsen’s work earlier this semester as a reference to give to another peer, but now feel as though his work applies to the shift that's recently happened in my practice. My interests have moved from depicting the final results of biological evolution to showing the visceral, in flux quality of flesh in the active throws of mutation.The body becomes fragmented and abstracted in a way that allows it to be seen as a malleable material rather than a stagnant object. With this shift came a reconsideration of Carlsen’s work in relation to my own. 

Carlsen uses photoshop to mutate and manipulate the body into fragmented representations that cannot be fully contextualized as human, bringing to the forefront the fleshy truths of the body malleable. Through this manipulation he allows the body to take on the qualities of a sculpture rather than a human subject. He reduces the body down to a material medium, ready to be molded and displayed in an art context yet the hints of human anatomy such as the bumps of the spine, legs, and feet create the grotesque realization that they were once or are still partially a person. A limbo effect is created with Carlsen’s decision to not fully depart from the body, creating a space where we contextualize these beings as both human and sculpture simultaneously. 

This approach to fragmenting the body is the premise of my current series of paintings, Erratic Transitions. Some images portray blatant human anatomy while others are framed in a way where the possibility of identification is diminished. It creates a push and pull in how we contextualize what is being portrayed. Is it a contorted human breast, a landscape, or a wad of flesh? Can it be more than one thing at the same time? Similar to the Easter eggs of human anatomy Carlsen offers in his work, the inclusion of a hand in each of my pieces offers a tether back to human form or at least some type of human intervention. We both seek to work with the body as material medium rather than subject, offering pieces of its familiarity whilst seeking to abstract from its full form. 

Asger Carlsen (at Chinatown New-York City) https://www.instagram.com/p/CVIs1BVofW1/?utm_medium=tumblr

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Maisie Cousins (British, b. 1992)

Finger, 2015

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Cousins’ work expresses the playful and intimate capacity of art in relation to the exploration of the body. While the imagery of plants, bugs, and the fleshy insides of fruits take on an abject quality we relate to our own body, fluids, and genitalia, it seeps with provocative energy that entices an edible and approachable quality to the work. Much of her work departs from relying on the body to portray human form and instead uses natural and manmade objects to create abstracted representations of the body. Perhaps this distance from the “real”  is what makes the work so approachable and categorizes it as erotically playful rather than pornographic. 

My work relies heavily on the figure as both a means of narrative and a material medium in which to create from. Although my recent project has used framing, perspective, and contortion of the body to abstract it from reality and offer a more illegible view of form, I still have yet to fully release the body as my subject matter and medium. Cousins’ work can be used as a baseline on how to encompass the core qualities of human form and flesh without the need of the body to do so.

Maisie Cousins

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While the thematic core of my work differs from that of Garner, there is a shared interest in using the grotesque nature of flesh to illuminate and transcend bodies that have been heavily policed and politicized throughout history. My work seeks to reduce the body down to its base form, malleable flesh, in order to release the constructs and boundaries we apply to the human body, specifically constructs of gender. As I use my own body as the subject in most of my pieces, much of my research and work has reflected on and critiqued the traditional modes of interaction with the female body as a passive object rather than active subject. This objectification and reduction of hierarchy due to sex relates to Garners spotlight on the exploitation of bodies in regards to race. We both reduce these bodies down to what they have historically been viewed as, consumable and disposable objects that are at the will of the Western social order. 

Her correlation between the meat trade and slave trade as well as the horrors applied to the body when it’s not viewed as fully human becomes the element of her work that holds attention to the washed over truths of history. In contrast, my work seeks to reduce the body down to an illegible quality that does not allow it to be viewed fully as human in order to release it from the limitations of the human context in regards to gender dynamics. Our shared choice to portray the body as flesh comes from different interactions with history, yet they both expose the visceral, abject transparency art offers in relation to historical wrongdoings. When the body is placed as the subject within an art context, it allows a shift in narrative that offers innate truth and places the power back with the rightful owner of these bodies, themselves.

Reference:

Watlington, Emily. 2021. “Black Skin, White Bust: Doreen Garner at Halle für Kunst Steiermark”. Artnews.Com https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/aia-reviews/doreen-garner-halle-fur-kunst-steiermark-1234612195/

Doreen Garner, ‘Rack of those ravaged and unconsenting’ from the ‘PRESENT’ collection

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Garner's work seeks to further expose the relationship between the body and social order, bringing to light the inhumane and violent interaction of racism and sexism within the world of medicine. Her depictions of hanging brown flesh, stapled and sewn together, becomes a visceral confrontation with the unseen and unspoken truths of our society’s foundation. 

The chosen materials of beads, pearls, plush stuffing, and cloth become a delicate approach to navigating a dark, violent side of history. Garner incorporates a level of meticulous care in the creation of these dismembered bodies, perhaps trying to remedy their treatment in life through their reconstruction. The delicate beauty created at the hand of the artist contrasts the grotesque narrative and appearance of these pieces of meat, playing at the abject quality created when contemporary art and history collide.

Doreen Garner, various pieces from the ‘ADORN’ collection, 2013 to 2015

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Romina Ressia, How Would Have Been? X, 2014 https://www.rominaressiaph.com/11110942/how-would-have-been-x#

Ressia’s photographic work blends our idealized, golden lens of history with elements of current reality and future desires in order to observe our cultural and social evolution across time. She juxtaposes classical portraiture with the playful, yet at times uncanny, pieces of our contemporary world that exaggerates our relationship with commercial and pop culture. LED Facemasks, cosmetic augmentation, and toys overlay a backdrop of traditional figures, creating a sense of critique over where society stands now. 

Although Ressia was recommended to me through the correlation of the three breasted figures that appear in both of our work, there is a connection to the idea of the body and culture in transitional states that further links our practices. Her work uses composited elements of contemporary culture over historical imagery to show just how far society has strayed over time. Through a much different approach, my work seeks to overlay desired future outcomes over the human body of today in order to expose possibilities that are yet to come. Ressia’s satirical illustration of cosmetic augmentation hits the same notes of exaggeration and spectacle that I seek to entice in my own work. Something that was considered an outlandish stretch in the past has the opportunity to become an everyday, mundane piece of society by tomorrow. By combining the historical with the contemporary, the distance between the two is exaggerated and exposed. 

Another way of looking at this linking is the way different figurative artists illustrate the relationship between time and the biological and social evolution that comes with it. Ressia focuses more heavily on the social implications of evolution while my work becomes a view of the biological mutation of human anatomy, however, both seek to explore the relationship between what was, what is, and what will be in regards to the body and society.

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Archie Barry, Blue Dog, 2021, Stills from Performance

https://archiebarry.com/Blue-Dog-1

Archie Barry was recommended to me in relation to the incorporation of the artist body as a material medium within the work. Through mostly performance and video work, Barry allows their body to become an artistic device, a malleable medium that is used to navigate their identity and explore the transitional state between real and abstract. In addition to the relationship between artist and medium, Barry’s work plays with the idea of where nonhuman beings land within the art space. 

In the performance piece Blue Dog, Barry pushes their body along the gallery floor while moaning and howling, becoming the vessel in which the blue being attached to their arm moves and speaks. Their role moves away from that of an artist and into a medium, translator, or vehicle that is used to navigate this space and our world. An arm painted blue holding a doll's head with a wig attached takes on an anthropomorphic, personified, character of an animal, alien, or being from an alternate reality trapped inside of the gallery. The lips and head move with the howls, convincing the audience of its autonomy and living presence. This body is attached to and one of the same as the artist body, yet they are read as two separate beings. Through the material medium of their body, Barry brings this creature to life. The artist is able to separate themselves entirely from the work while remaining intimately attached. 

This push and pull of the role of the artist in relationship to the use of their own body is a theme I navigate in my work. Where does the agency of the artist end and the content and material of the piece begin when they are one of the same? Is my body that paints the work the conductor or is my body that is the work in control? 

When discussing this work with my advisor, the relationship of framing and fragmenting the body became an evident thread between our two practices. As far removed as Barry’s work is from my own, the agency of how the artist offers the work and the body to the viewer is quite similar. Barry uses this framing of the body to fragment it into two separate entities. As a viewer, I focus on the blue creature roaming around the room rather than the person sliding around on the floor. Barry sets the frame in which we contextualize what we're seeing, placing more emphasis on the spectacle of the creature than on the artist. 

In my work, the viewer is given the same content (a torso, one leg, and one hand) over and over again but is never given the full figure. The body is fragmented by the framing of the contained canvas and does not offer a full context of the figure we know. This allows the audience to not immediately interact with the figure as a human body and leaves the door open to interpretation rather than a fully legible, set answer. I frame the figure in a way that maintains ambiguity and places the emphasis on this unfinished, undefined view of the body.

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Philip Brophy, The Body Malleable (screenshot stills) 2004, 3' 29", stereo mix. http://www.philipbrophy.com/projects/bodymalleable/infoV.html

My current series has begun to focus on the malleable quality of flesh and the body as a material open to distortion. In a recent talk with my advisor, Ian Haig, we discussed the use of the hands in my work, contorting and manipulating the flesh of the subject or reaching out towards and interacting with the viewer. The agency the hand holds in relationship to the viewer, the artist, and the body is something explored in Philip Brophy’s interactive piece, The Body Malleable. 

In this work, viewers stick their fingers into a hole that allows them to manipulate a ball of flesh projected on the wall. As the flesh is interacted with it begins to take on the shape of sexual organs and bodies, morphing from one into the other fluidly. The finger is in control of the mutation happening to the “body”, molding it like a ball of clay into desired outcomes. 

My work differs from Brophy’s in the sense that the hands that control the manipulation of flesh are contained within my image and are at the will of the artist. My own hands are not only the ones depicted in the images but also control the paintbrush that is the mechanism of creation and distortion in these works. The sense of control remains in the literal hands of the artist and subject rather than at the will of the viewer. Both myself and Brophy depict the malleable, in flux quality of flesh and the possibilities that proceed with this type of interaction with the body. As my work begins to eliminate defining qualities of human anatomy and instead zoom into the indiscernible folds, wrinkles, and bulges of flesh, it moves beyond our contained notion of the body. 

Beyond the capacity of the hands as an agent of manipulation, Brophy’s work highlights the fluctuating quality of the sexed body that has remained an interest in my own practice. What starts as a ball of flesh morphs into depictions of a phallus, a vagina, a female egg splitting, and multi-gendered torsos in a fluid, active manner. The flesh can begin to mutate into one while still retaining attributes of the other. For example, it becomes a vagina and a male torso at the same time. In this work, the “body” is a mere ball of flesh that has the opportunity to become all encompassing of features we usually designate to either gender, either body. In the Transhumanist realm of theory that I’m working from, I engage with the body as a material in flux, departed from the binary categorization we use to negotiate sex and gender today. The only quality that remains biologically ordained to the body is the flesh due to its malleable quality and the opportunities it holds.

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Colquhoun merges the abstracted body with depictions of abstracted nature, showing the undeniable crossover between the two. In her painting, Gorgon, stacks of mushroom-like bulges move up the center of the image, pulling away to reveal a fleshy, vaginal center. Two bulges at the top hang down, mimicking the anatomy of the uterus and ovaries. Spindles of paint reaching out from the exterior walls elude to moss or the smearing of blood. She intertwines the body with nature, one informing the other, while abstracting from both entirely. In my current series, the viewer sees the body from a skewed perspective, unable to determine if what's being depicted is the round bottom of a breast, the fleshy interior of the mouth, or an abstracted landscape. This merging of the body with nature allows an illegible, ambiguous quality to enter the work and further abstracts it from reality and our set conditions for viewing the body. 

Ithell Colquhoun Gorgon, 1946

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Ithell Colquhoun, Alcove I, 1946

Colquhoun’s work is of interest to me regarding the imaginative capacity and quality paint holds in relation to the collision of the body and fantasy. Much of her work, while highly abstracted from reality, takes on the visceral representation of the body. The drips and cracks of dried paint in her piece, Alcove I, take on the appearance of veins, nerve circuits, and the brain stem. The coloring of the objects around the exterior of the image relate to the fleshy quality of an orifice or internal organ, pumping with blood, opening and closing. The black void surrounding this “flesh” encourages the idea of being inside of the body, playing on the abject nature of the unseen. It allows me to look at the body objectively, not tied to the representation of the figure but rather to the raw qualities of blood and flesh that are the corporeal facts of a living animal. It releases my dependence on the figure to be my solo mode of depicting the body. 

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This fragmented quality of bodily features is something I’m trying to achieve in my current series. Whilst each feature makes sense when seen as part of the whole form, the isolation and zoomed in quality adds a level of abjection and abstraction. It is no longer mouth, nose, or ear, but becomes warped flesh with holes and teeth. This visceral interaction diminishes our ability to contextualize these features within the framing of human anatomy. In my own series, I’m moving inward, towards the cracks, crannies, and folds of flesh. Hints of human iconography such as the knuckles of a hand or the bottom of a breast seek to apply these features to the body, but the lack of full context distances it from known form. 

Lucas Samaras, “Photo-Transformation, 11/8/73.” 1973.

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This relationship between photographing the “real” and distorting this reality through the manipulation of materials is something that is seen in Samaras photographic portraits as well as my own painting practice. We both work with our own nude bodies as the model, taking photographs in the intimate, mundane setting of our homes. While our processes start from humble beginnings deeply set in reality, the final form takes on a quality of transcendence and distortion from the known body and setting. 

Samaras scratches and smears his developing Polaroid portraits in order to create a distortion that mimics the abstracted quality of painting. His body becomes malleable and fragmented, taking on an alien-like, unfinished quality that sits against the backdrop of his kitchen. Similar to Louise Bonnets work, this everyday domestic interior seeks to find a place for these highly distorted beings within our framing of reality. Whereas his manipulation of the body remains on the fragile surface of the photograph, my intervention comes from moving between mediums. I use the photographs of my own body to inform my painting practice, using it as a point of departure from reality. The adding and subtracting of features is done through the process of painting rather than manipulating the photographic medium itself. The use of the artist's hand, smearing and smudging the materials, is an essential part of my own practice and my achievement of distorted human form. 

Photo-transformation with Polaroid print by Lucas Samaras, 1976

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Lucas Samaras, Photo-Transformation, July 23, 1976

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Lucas Samaras Photo-transformation 2/1/74 1974