Big canvas in progress
I always wanted to paint the figure for this project but was unintentionally lead towards the planes of the face. Through experimenting on a small canvas I knew to get the freedom and expression of marks I needed the surface of the flesh to be large. I also wanted the confrontational aspect of a large canvas allowing the figure and materiality of paint, seen in ‘Passage’, 2004 by Saville which, I analysed in my dissertation.
Braun said ‘Titian placed the figures uncomfortably close to the front of the picture space, creating a confrontation between flesh and viewer.’ (Paint Made Flesh catalogue, 2009).
I looked at Bacon’s – ‘Figure in a Landscape’ and ‘Seated Figure’ to try and get an idea of scale. On cardboard, lining the floor of my studio, I drew out my figure with a marker on a longstick, and measured the space I thought I would need.
However this large scale has given me problems – I cannot view all my canvas at once and my figure just keeps going wrong. I thought to grid it out but didn’t want to engrave that on my canvas – instead I used thread taped on to rule out a simple 12 square grid. I also used photoshop to place the grid on my image. As well as that I gridded a photograph of what I’ve done so far. My head and shoulders were right but a subtle mistake on one knee too high sets all other aspects of the form off kilter.
**Jenny Saville: ‘I have to really work at the tension between getting the paint to have the sensory quality that I want and be constructive in terms of building the form of a stomach, for example, or creating the inner crevice of a thigh.’
I feel this is very much the case the way I have been working on this canvas.
I wanted the figure in this painting to be uncomplicated – relying only on the language of my paint . This is an interesting comparison to my earlier idea of using digital imagery to work from as a way to manipulate the conversation between paint and viewer.
Originally I took a photograph of my mum and drew her from life to get an idea of the figure and positioning of the body. I then developed it in to a photograph of myself in the same position.
It is both an open and a guarded position – legs folded open but contradicted by the arms which cross over and hold both the legs.
It was a surprisingly awkward and painful position to hold which I find interesting. That awkwardness seems to have filtered into my handling of the paint and working the flesh out!
