Portraiture Art as a Format of Visual Document of Human Psyche

Samantha Mharni Arden - Fine Art MA - DE4001

Introduction (500 words)

The purpose of this paper is to argue that portraiture art can be a successful format of visual document which presents human psyche both within the artist and within the audience. This will be achieved through positioning my practice, which is centred around portraiture and documentation within a historical debate through a contextual review. This will include artists and exhibitions which are significant to the development of my creative practice. Furthermore, I will present a literature review, surrounding the argument that art should be seen as documentation, as well as the opposed position towards my argument.

I am currently researching art forms as documentation, focusing on self-portraiture. My practice also requires research on scientific themes such as psychology and sight, to balance my perspective and arguments. This translates into both qualitative primary research, focusing on self-portraiture as a document and theory in practice, as well as quantitative and qualitative secondary research.

The self-portrait is a genre in which the product lends itself to that of a magic mirror; a reflection of which, on display, is a spectacle of yourself, distorted, in the mind of its genesis, drowning in self-pity and paracetic hubris. Denoting this warped sense of reality fails to breach the harsh truth of scientific documentation, yet these articles provide themselves as irreplaceable memoranda, as intermittent comments on the milieu in which they were created.

Although my work was first officially based on a series of blind drawings, this new year of practice brought inspiration towards painting as a link into more traditional forms of art. I was influenced by self-portraiture within the conventional sense, including art by painters such as Gustave Courbet and Robert Medley. Despite this, following a visit to the installation exhibition ‘Wake the Tiger’ in Bristol, as well as conversations with installation based artists outside of the university, I became inspired to modernise my practice and experiment with the boundaries between the artistic community and the general public. Therefore, my current line of thinking was influenced by sculptural work from Jack Whitten and Ed Atkins.

My practice has been informed by multiple texts including: ‘Portraits, John Berger on Artists’ by John Berger; ‘An Interview with Walker Evans Pt.1 (1971)’ a transcript published by ASX; ‘Memoirs of the Blind, The Self-Portrait and Other Ruins’ by Jacques Derrida; ‘Art and Psyche, A study in Psychoanalysis and Aesthetics’ by Ellen Handler Spitz. These have guided my approach to my practice by allowing my inspiration to remain informed by both the scientific and artistic research present within my field.

= 421 words

Section 1 Contextual review (1000 words)

Initially, portraiture became an interest in relation to my practice through the artist Gustave Courbet, specifically through the piece “A Desperate Man” which was a self-portrait produced between 1844-1845. In a review within ‘The Art Bullitin’ , Linda Nochlin states: “Courbet retained an appreciation of Dutch and Spanish 17th-century paintings.' Nochlin points out that Courbet's Desperate Man (1841), with its fleeting facial expression, is inspired by Rembrandt's etched self-portraits of ca. 1630, with their momentary attitudes. Aside from these early influences, Nochlin also notices that Courbet manifested Realist inclinations from the beginning.” (Weisberg, 1978) This work was specifically interesting because of the composition for the piece, and its explicit display of the psyche of the artist and subject himself, Corbet.

This interest further turned to a more contemporary artist, Robert Medley, who, in 1980, created “Self Portrait after Watteau (Gilles Au Nu)”. This piece, and Robert Medley’s portraiture work as a whole, expressed a more unorthodox approach to the notion of portraiture and further expressed the idea that portraits could move away from the tradition, as, within the work, Medley’s face is highly obscured, contrasting against the accepted definition of portraiture. On the James Hyman Art Gallery website, on the topic of this piece it is stated: “In these brave late self portraits the aged artist appears to stare death in the face in a moving embodiment of the ageing process.Their impact was immediate, as Norman Rosenthal recalls: 'It must have been about 1980 when I went to the studio and found an astonishing composition - a painting of the artist standing naked in a modern landscape” (James Hyman Gallery Website, cited 2022)

Furthermore, one artist who was a considerable influence for my practice was Claude Heath, specifically, his 1996 project “Blindfold Drawings”. Tom Lubbock who wrote 'Don't look now’ stated when describing the work: 'These images don't just show the world from some kind of unusual angle. They show the human mind, its limits, and its weird ability to outstretch itself.’(Lubbock, 2002). Heath’s project subject matter was of people and sculptures to generate blind drawings made in pen. I responded to this idea of documentation within my previous project and was influenced by his technique and processes which has significantly shaped my current work.

As well as this, I researched Robert Morris’ Blind Time drawings, which significantly relate to my work through the process of mark making and further supports the purpose and credibility of this project through placing it within a context of artistic modernity. This abstract impressionist project uses graphite on paper and demonstrates an allowance for a disconnect of control to create drawings using his lesser dominant hand. This work inspired a suggestion to experiment with these drawings outside what I would have initially planned. On the Castelli Gallery website the following statement discusses this project, going on to say that the drawings “insist on the primacy of the phenomenological over the conceptual but require viewers to step out of themselves and assume the place of the artist, as if their own hands and limbs are creating the marks on the sheet before them. In later iterations of the series, Morris expands the idea of phenomenological imagery to include historical as well as individual experience. For instance, in Blind Time (Grief) VI, from 2009, he responds to the endless “war on terror” by asking viewers to see the different zones of his drawing as corresponding to different social groups” (Karmel, cited 2022)

During October 2022, I visited ‘Wake the Tiger’, an ‘amazement park’ exhibition in Bristol, which featured installation pieces, collage, sound and sculptural work. This project was created with an obvious intent to include a more wide-scaled public audience into an artistic view of capitalist functions. This was demonstrated by the initial discussion of a made-up accommodation business of comedically small flats versus a contrast of an ulterior whimsical world. This project in particular was interesting to my practice because it allowed the idea of sculptural and collage work to come into fruition within the context of scientific documentation versus the juxtaposing artistic influences. The experience was described on the Bristol Live website as “Visitors can finally discover what it feels to embark through the portal into a parallel world of Meridia through an immersive art experience - enhanced by sound, sight and hearing within 27 rooms- which are all intertwined through a maze of secret passageways” (Hamed, 2022)

In addition, I also visited the Tate Modern in London and was particularly interested in ‘Recreation of First Public Demonstration of Auto-Destructive Art 1960, remade 2004, 2015’ by Gustav Metzger. This piece of art was initially a performance piece of auto-destructive art and within the Tate, the following description was presented “His first demonstration was at the Temple Gallery, London, on 22 June 1960. At first Metzger was hidden behind a pane of glass covered with a white nylon sheet. He applied a hydrochloric acid solution to the fabric with a brush. As the nylon dissolved, he slowly became visible through the holes.” (Tate, cited 2022) This art piece was particularly interesting to the development of my project due to the previous ideas with destruction of documentation to contrast with the preciousness and importance of the preservation of this information and the usefulness of modern technology to conserve, distribute and expand knowledge.

Furthermore, I also conducted research by attending the Bankside Gallery in London. The work available within this gallery favoured watercolour, however, two pieces in particular were highly valuable to my creative practice. The initial life drawings featured below is interesting in terms of their composition and distruction of the stereotypical definition of portraiture, similarly to Robert Medley. I was also interested with the piece due to the printing method used. This is applicable to my creative practice due to the ideas of documentation and images that already exist outside of the premise of this artistic piece.

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Section 2 Literature review (750 words)

“Portraits, John Berger on Artists” is an essay, edited by Tom Overton in 2015. This essay is detrimental to the understanding of my practice and its value in portraiture as it demonstrates that portraiture art can be applied as a considerable mass outside of the stereotypical scope and definition of a person. This is because it represents ownership and internality and exists to define that document, in this context, presents the internal monologue and conflict of that of its creator. A visual document can be summarised through an implication versus an explicit denotation, usually culminating in qualitative information and relies upon the jurisdiction of its beholder to be consumed. One quote that particularly influences my line of enquiry is “Flawed because very evidently hand-made. More precious because the painted gaze is entirely concentrated on the life it knows it will one day lose.” (Berger, 2021:11) This quote reads to present the fragility of portraiture, and yet the importance of it, allowing us to create complex relationships between ourselves and the ancient people and understand their path with more respect and personal connection.

A text which actively positions my argument into the historical debate is a transcript entitled “An Interview with Walker Evans Pt. 1 (1971)”, published by ASX in 2011. Within this excerpt, Evans argued “Documentary? That’s a very sophisticated and misleading word. And not really clear. You have to have a sophisticated ear to receive that word. The term should be documentary style. An example of a literal document would be a police photograph of a murder scene. You see, a document has use, whereas art is really useless. Therefore art is never a document, though it certainly can adopt that style.” (Evans, 1971) This text argues that a document is a finite definition, one that exists to militantly provide explicit and undebatable information. This excerpt allows the positioning of my practice and research to locate itself as an argument against the rigid beliefs of critical analysis’ such as the aforementioned.

Despite this previous argument, the principles established in my next text, “Memoirs of the Blind: The Self Portrait and Other Ruins” by Jacques Derrida, translated and published in 1993, voices contradiction against this narrative. This text changes the definition of a portrait within this context and embraces error and lack of judgement. This document, usually fuled by an aesthetic desire, is permanently altered when you view “beyond the visible present”. (Derrida, 2020). For example, this embodiment of flaw can be demonstrated within the following extract derived from the text, “I am in error, I deceive myself, because, being able to exercise my will infinitely and in an instant, I can will to move myself beyond perception, can will [vouloir] beyond sight [voir].” (Derrida, 2020). This relates to the social position of my work as it allows an application to the context that errors within my practice, which I have embraced, go beyond sight, and can be further demonstrated within a context of sculptural background. This analysis of error furthermore links to the Theory of Trace, also established by Derrida.

The Theory of Deconstruction or Trace creates a paradoxical application to creative practices and implies that they do not have one definable meaning. This theory suggests that attempting to control information, disregards its value as a document and therefore having errors within one’s practice can create incredible influence. This is demonstrated within the following statement “The very meaning and mission of deconstruction is to show that things-texts, institutions, traditions, societies, beliefs, and practices of whatever size and sort you need-do not have definable meanings and determinable missions, that they are always more than any mission would impose, that they exceed the boundaries they currently occupy. What is really going on in things, what is really happening, is always to come. Every time you try to stabilize the meaning of a thing, to fix it in its missionary position, the thing itself, if there is anything at all to it, slips away.” (Caputo, 2006) This importance positions my practice in a scientific world by creating a contrast to explicit information through presenting a line of enquiry which is implicit, qualitative and left up to interpretation, and despite everything, is still a document which can be perceived by the beholder to absorb information.

The last text in which I especially took an interest is ‘Art and psyche : a study in psychoanalysis and aesthetics’ by Ellen Handler Spitz published in 1985. This text is highly applicable to my practice because describes the relationship that art has with pathology and psychoanalysis. “in which pathography was attacked either as counterfeit art criticism or as bastardized psychoanalysis. At the same time, the phenomenological approach preserves the fundamental paradoxes of pathography (for example, freedom versus determinism), but sees them as exquisitely appropriate, as advantages rather than liabilities.” (Spitz, 1985)

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Conclusion (250)

The purpose of this paper was to argue that portraiture art can be a successful format of visual document which presents human psyche. This was expressed through the positionment of my practice, which was related to a historical debate through a contextual review which guided my approach to my artistic direction, including artists and exhibitions which are still significant to the development of my project. Furthermore, this was also achieved through a literature review, surrounding the argument that art should be seen as a valuable format of psychological documentation.

Throughout this debate, the importance of art as a document has been central to my arguement. This method of document maintains less finite information as opposed explicit documentation stating fact, of which has been commonly used within scientific practice. This format of information validates itself when applied to the individuals who take in this data and create different interpretations, as well as when applied to the information given by the artist themselves. This argument has been represented through the artists work that have been covered within the first section of this paper, and it has been balanced through the information reviewed within the second section.

= 194 words

Total word count = 2,400