Karart Blog

I realise that I am building on the work I have produced over the past two years. To someone looking in it might appear that I have  strayed far from a single path but when I step back and reflect on the different themes and ideas running throughout I see that I am drawn to explore the human form and how it can be portrayed.

In my Eqyptian work I “wrapped” a form in brown paper.

This was part of the final work I displayed at the end of my first year in an exhibition called Twenty-Thirteen.

Kathryn Raffell, 2012-2013, Untitled, Cardboard and paper, 150cmx40cmx30cm

In my research I also found that the Egyptians used a symbol of an eye. It was called The Eye of Horus and was a symbol to them of protection and royal power.

Eye of Horus image obtained from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_Horus

This fascination with the  human eye and its images led me to experiment further and make a short video.

I wanted to show how material can be used to form representations of other things and it formed the base to progress my painting practice

This moved to investigate human eyes, which are one of the most important organs and symbols.

Kathryn Raffell, 2014, Untitled, Acrylic on oval canvas, 25cmx20cm.

This piece was made to question if, by just detailing eyes into an oval it could/would represent form and function as a masked face. It was one of a pair (the other was a smaller pair of eyes behind a crimson oval).

These two pieces were shown last year in the Crypt Gallery London as part of our Universities Contemporary British Painting exhibition.

And finally this year I have pushed forward towards representing pattern and form, wrapping and covering of the human form within the medium of painting.

Within this I continued with exploring and made three small portrait paintings which I placed behind painted canvases and cut them to reveal parts of the faces.

Kathryn Raffell, 2014, Three untitled pieces, Acrylic on Canvas, 10cmx20cm.

IDEAS

1. Cover canvas with Paynes Grey and invite viewer to participate by sanding parts of the surface and revealing parts of the base work.
2. “wrap” the large canvas in polywrap and tape and invite viewers to tear away pieces of the covering during the Degree Show and reveal parts of the painting underneath.
3. Put a piece of work into a glazed frame, paint the glass and invite the viewer to scratch away the paint to reveal work underneath. “scratch & reveal”.

These ideas of new work is moving towards abstract contemporary work. It is me responding to the portraits appearance and using a new process for me, obscure and disguise, a locking in and then extracting.

“everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see”

Continuing with the exploration of covering and uncovering I came across this quote from Magritte. (taken from a book called High Touch, published by Gestalten in 2012, page 29). It fits so well with my work at the moment and how I want to explore the representation of form.

The reality of portraiture is in the capture of the essence of the person being painted otherwise you could just take a photograph which would be an exact image of that moment in time but that’s not what I am about .

I am moving my work forward from enfolding my figure within different and contrasting patterns to looking at how the information painted into previous portraits, that I have abandoned, can be manipulated and changed by covering and uncovering elements of the original with over-painting. To question if by doing this the character, the essence, of the person can be visually changed. To ask if a simplified representation can have the same character traits showing through. To create an elusive quality that has hidden depths and  meanings to the person.

I am not sure why but I have suddenly thought of Christo and Jeanne-Claude and how they wrapped objects.They left the shape of the form underneath and covered it with material. They worked in 3D whereas mine is 2D in nature but the message was similar. Questioning whether changing the appearance of something familiar would create a different reaction when viewing the work in its changed form.

Christo and Jeanne Claude, 1964, Wrapped Magazines: Esquire 1964, Life 1972, The New York Times 1985

The wrapped magazines were a series that they experimented with in the 60s, 70s and 80s and seemed relevant to me because of there size.

The one I am showing was wrapped by Christo in 1964 and given to Allan Kaprow who kept it for Christo.  The video clip is of Christo talking about the magazines as he retrieved from a cupboard and opened in 2011. Imagine wrapping things into parcels, storing, and then opening them again after more than 40 years!

http://www.christojeanneclaude.net/videos/wrapped-magazines

With this next canvas I thought I would experiment by painting out the whole of the surface with Paynes Grey (love that colour) and then will use a block of wood and sandpaper to rub back through the surface and see what effect I can achieve with these simple tools.

Kathryn Raffell, 2014, Untitled, Acrylic  on canvas, 40cmx50cm.

The eyes are the most appealing feature of this portrait. I was disappointed with the angle and shape of the face so it was the next candidate for a make-over.

The eyes and the mouth are the main features of the face that I have been revealed. The original colour has been reduced but remains a dominant feature or the original portrait that now shows. The eyes are still the area of a face that I want to “unwrap” and reveal, to draw attention to.

Kathryn Raffell, 2014, Untitled, Acrylic  on canvas, 40cmx50cm.

The pale colours of the face remind me of a faded fresco that would have been painted onto plaster in the 14th to 16th centuries.

It started with an idea to use an old painted canvas as a backing for another piece of work. I wanted the backing canvas to be a dark colour, so started to paint out the portrait with Paynes Grey (I love that colour). Carefully starting at the edges of the canvas and working in to the face I stopped and couldn’t bring myself to paint over the eyes. Painting out the rest of the canvas leaving just that part exposed or “unwrapped” brought focus to the central part of the face which, when you are viewing a portrait of someone, is the area that your eye is drawn to.

Kathryn Raffell, 2015, Untitled work, Acrylic on Canvas, 40cmx50cm.

The texture of the swirls and sweeps of the overpainting adds to the overall fascination, perhaps asking the viewer to imagine what is beneath the parts that are not exposed.

I stopped and hung the work to contemplate the effect. In me it evoked thoughts of strength and vulnerability at the same time.

With this canvas I feel now that my work is evolving from investigating wrapping and covering forms in pattern to exploring covering and uncovering aspects of a form. Adding and subtracting paint, physically mark making, concentrating on the surface and the appearance of the form underneath as the layers are sanded away.

I have several portraits that I have painted over the last two years that I put away as they were not working for one reason or another and I think now is the time to experiment with them to make new work and see where it takes me.