“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
