Final Dissertation
Me, Myself and I
How can I explore the inner self through traditional self-portraiture?
My Question has changed drastically transforming into more of a focus on identity and the self. How can the nude be normalized through the act of traditional self-portraiture ? was my original question but my overall research project has grown more personnel as the project has progressed going from a general board idea of subverting the male gaze, to show that nudity doesn’t necessarily equal sexualisation and rather than being sexual objects women are sexual subjects, to finally How can I explore the inner self through traditional self-portraiture?. What shaped me into changing my question to this, was research I did into the theories of psychoanalysts such as Freud and Jung and because the model of the painting is myself therefore it isn’t just a portrait, but a self-portrait and from their I slowly began to transform my question. While researching I gravitated more into the Jung camp looking at what he has to say about the self. Looking at the theories of Jung allowed me to drastically transform my question and I now will be focusing more of an exploration of the self through the theories of Carl Jung.
Overall my project went through many changes into what it was going to be, in total I made about 8 different thumbnails with very different but similar intentions for all of them, all were meant to be the final however this kept changing along with my question. Originally it began of as a painting that focused on female sexuality incorporating signifiers to represent and reflect this, the black cat in the corner of the canvas being a remnant of that. In the final version I choose not to remove it as its a painting of my cat Elmo and I feel it's a nice easter egg to remember what the painting started as and where it came from.
When creating the final painting I aimed to create something that subverts traditional female archetypes and presents the naked body as nothing but flesh of the self and an expression of who we are rather than what we are. Ultimately this transformed into something more personnel as stated before I was the model in this while many of the ties to sexuality and the idea of the gaze remain tied to my question and my research in constructing this work, my perception on how other people will view and receive the painting has progressively become ambivalent as the focus began to shift to identity in connection to myself as an artist and a women. During this time, I began to gravitate to female artists who painted themselves to see how, what and why they made the decisions they did in choosing to portray themselves. One such artist was Rita Angus who’s unequivocally confident self-portraits reflect a developing self through forty years. Essays in the understanding of the self, she was known for the variety of guises in her self-portraits – strong and confident in one; introspective in another; direct and piercing; sometimes playful as she confronts the viewer, even in her nude self-portraits she had the same piercing gaze she constantly presented, as if to say to the viewer this is who I am and I don't give a damn what you think. I found this attitude was very common amongst many of the female artist portraits I found even artist as old as Judith Leyster whose portrait incorporates a witty sense of humour in the way her paintbrush is angled at the jester’s crotch in her 1609 self-portrait, as if to show that her paintings and craftsmanship is superior to that of her male counterparts who are lacking. Examining artists such as these gave me more of an insight into the genre of self-portraiture through a feminine lens and gave me more of an understanding of portraying the self.
What made me decide on what style of self-portraiture I would do I was drawn to the traditional artist self-portraits, settled in their own environment dedicating themselves to their work, rather than a sterile portrait of the artist just settled staring at the audience. This act of painting gives us more of an insight into the artists life, personality and how the work it’s a visual diary of their lives and history. This personnel and identity aspect of this style of portraiture led me to paint myself working away on a canvas, showing myself as how I would paint but having been interrupted by the viewer, the figure will gaze out at them paintbrush still in hand working away at the canvas as if the viewer has just entered the scene.
Portraying the naked form lead me to examining artists, reading essays and articles. One such essay was Laura Mulvey's "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" (1975) which I believe was an essential read when it comes to anything to do with the representation of the female form. Mulvey brings forward the idea of the Male Gaze a feminist theory that evolved from Lacan's psychoanalytic term "The Gaze". Gazing was important in Lacan's theories in relation to the mirror stage, where the subject appears to achieve a sense of mastery by seeing himself as ideal ego. While Lacan and many of his contemporaries such as Carl Yung focused on the self and how we perceive ourselves Mulvey’s focused on how men, in context to the essay, how Hollywood cinema was largely filmed through the eyes of men, told the stories of men which lead to women being objectified by the heteronormativity of the masculine film industry. An artist who has largely influenced me in how I present the nude form was Artemisia Gentileschi in her painting Susanna and the elders, which acts as a metaphorical self-portrait of her rape and sexual exploitation of her painting tutor. Artemisias subject is nude however remains active in the seen her nudity isn’t being used in a sexual manner as Gentileschi has humanized her giving her an active role as she attempts to fight of her rapists, while her body is nude the composition has presented the nude in a believable way, her legs aren't spread for all to see, her breasts aren’t facing the viewer, the way Susanna (Artemisia) is posed in the painting is a natural response and one that I took influence from.
A recently discovered German expressionist Paula Modersohn-Becker was an artist who influenced my work majorly particularly her nude self-portrait titled, Self-Portrait with an Amber Necklace, 1906 Oil on canvas. Finding a nude portrait like this from a female artist in the 1900s was unexpected and I’m very happy to have find it as this painting demonstrates how comfortable she is with herself, her body and career as a painter. Modersohn embraces femininity showing herself surrounded by flowers and holding them gracefully in her hands, she shows the beauty of the naturel female form without idealising it. Her technique was also something that influenced my style of painting, being from the period of early expressionism her style is very painterly and is like that of impressionist Paul Cezanne. Looking at her style I began to test it out on small pieces of canvas paper seeing how it would look and if I would replicate it in my final painting, while I didn’t like the outcome of the test I love the technique and the texture it had. The rough paint strokes did influence me however I felt I should use different art styles when depicting the different portraits of myself, one being much rougher and harsher to show the idea that it’s a blurring reflection, a shadow, the others being more refined and clearer in comparison to illustrate a clear difference.
Carl Jung is psychoanalyst, one of the major players who developed the groundwork for early psychology. Jung was obsessed with the idea of the “unconscious” and aspects of the self, creating new terms to fit in with his theories and obsession of human identity. These terms include things such as the Anima and Animus, ego consciousness, the persona and the shadow what do these all mean and what do these all mean in relation to my work. Jungs theories are an exploration of the self and the many layers of a person's psyche, applying these theories to my own work have helped me address the exploration of my own trues self and the many layers of my own identity. Many of Jungs aspects of the psyche are represented in my work with the first being the persona, a mask appearance the ideal me that is presented to the world ("Carl Jung: Individuation Process", 2019). While it isn't necessarily a lie it isn't exactly a truth as it is self-constructed by the self and changes according to society or context. The persona is represented in the painting to the far right as hyper feminine, mimicking the pose in Paula Modersohn-Becker self-portrait, (I've selected this painting as I believe it is one of the most feminine paintings I've seen that celebrates female beauty and grace). The figure to the far left is a representation as both the shadow and the animus, the weakness and negative aspects that people wish to remain sinking in the sea and the inner masculine personality. Below the figure, white flowers grow these flowers however do have significance and are in fact white Chrysanthemum, signifiers of truth. My reason for incorporating these flowers is because I want to show that the shadow and the animus/anima are important aspects of ourselves just as important as the persona (the positive aspects), theses aspects are the truth, and work in relation to what Jung believed, that if one is to truly grow as a person, one must become aware of their shadow and persona, balancing them out.
From the realizing of the shadow and the persona we can finally discover our true selves, this discovery of the self is represented in the nude portrait in the middle painting. Within the figure in the centre of the canvas I attempted to incorporate both aspects from the persona and the shadow to make it appear as an equal balance of both, while the figure is nude like the persona the figure appears aware of their own nudity and stares down the audience who stares down the viewers, the figure is active within the scene not an object to be gazed at. I made sure that the centre figure represented my true self, that I addressed this aspect with authenticity, to show who I truly am.
How can I explore the inner self through traditional self-portraiture?
My Question has changed drastically transforming into more of a focus on identity and the self. How can the nude be normalized through the act of traditional self-portraiture ? was my original question but my overall research project has grown more personnel as the project has progressed going from a general board idea of subverting the male gaze, to show that nudity doesn’t necessarily equal sexualisation and rather than being sexual objects women are sexual subjects, to finally How can I explore the inner self through traditional self-portraiture?. What shaped me into changing my question to this, was research I did into the theories of psychoanalysts such as Freud and Jung and because the model of the painting is myself therefore it isn’t just a portrait, but a self-portrait and from their I slowly began to transform my question. While researching I gravitated more into the Jung camp looking at what he has to say about the self. Looking at the theories of Jung allowed me to drastically transform my question and I now will be focusing more of an exploration of the self through the theories of Carl Jung.
Overall my project went through many changes into what it was going to be, in total I made about 8 different thumbnails with very different but similar intentions for all of them, all were meant to be the final however this kept changing along with my question. Originally it began of as a painting that focused on female sexuality incorporating signifiers to represent and reflect this, the black cat in the corner of the canvas being a remnant of that. In the final version I choose not to remove it as its a painting of my cat Elmo and I feel it's a nice easter egg to remember what the painting started as and where it came from.
When creating the final painting I aimed to create something that subverts traditional female archetypes and presents the naked body as nothing but flesh of the self and an expression of who we are rather than what we are. Ultimately this transformed into something more personnel as stated before I was the model in this while many of the ties to sexuality and the idea of the gaze remain tied to my question and my research in constructing this work, my perception on how other people will view and receive the painting has progressively become ambivalent as the focus began to shift to identity in connection to myself as an artist and a women. During this time, I began to gravitate to female artists who painted themselves to see how, what and why they made the decisions they did in choosing to portray themselves. One such artist was Rita Angus who’s unequivocally confident self-portraits reflect a developing self through forty years. Essays in the understanding of the self, she was known for the variety of guises in her self-portraits – strong and confident in one; introspective in another; direct and piercing; sometimes playful as she confronts the viewer, even in her nude self-portraits she had the same piercing gaze she constantly presented, as if to say to the viewer this is who I am and I don't give a damn what you think. I found this attitude was very common amongst many of the female artist portraits I found even artist as old as Judith Leyster whose portrait incorporates a witty sense of humour in the way her paintbrush is angled at the jester’s crotch in her 1609 self-portrait, as if to show that her paintings and craftsmanship is superior to that of her male counterparts who are lacking. Examining artists such as these gave me more of an insight into the genre of self-portraiture through a feminine lens and gave me more of an understanding of portraying the self.
What made me decide on what style of self-portraiture I would do I was drawn to the traditional artist self-portraits, settled in their own environment dedicating themselves to their work, rather than a sterile portrait of the artist just settled staring at the audience. This act of painting gives us more of an insight into the artists life, personality and how the work it’s a visual diary of their lives and history. This personnel and identity aspect of this style of portraiture led me to paint myself working away on a canvas, showing myself as how I would paint but having been interrupted by the viewer, the figure will gaze out at them paintbrush still in hand working away at the canvas as if the viewer has just entered the scene.
Portraying the naked form lead me to examining artists, reading essays and articles. One such essay was Laura Mulvey's "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" (1975) which I believe was an essential read when it comes to anything to do with the representation of the female form. Mulvey brings forward the idea of the Male Gaze a feminist theory that evolved from Lacan's psychoanalytic term "The Gaze". Gazing was important in Lacan's theories in relation to the mirror stage, where the subject appears to achieve a sense of mastery by seeing himself as ideal ego. While Lacan and many of his contemporaries such as Carl Yung focused on the self and how we perceive ourselves Mulvey’s focused on how men, in context to the essay, how Hollywood cinema was largely filmed through the eyes of men, told the stories of men which lead to women being objectified by the heteronormativity of the masculine film industry. An artist who has largely influenced me in how I present the nude form was Artemisia Gentileschi in her painting Susanna and the elders, which acts as a metaphorical self-portrait of her rape and sexual exploitation of her painting tutor. Artemisias subject is nude however remains active in the seen her nudity isn’t being used in a sexual manner as Gentileschi has humanized her giving her an active role as she attempts to fight of her rapists, while her body is nude the composition has presented the nude in a believable way, her legs aren't spread for all to see, her breasts aren’t facing the viewer, the way Susanna (Artemisia) is posed in the painting is a natural response and one that I took influence from.
A recently discovered German expressionist Paula Modersohn-Becker was an artist who influenced my work majorly particularly her nude self-portrait titled, Self-Portrait with an Amber Necklace, 1906 Oil on canvas. Finding a nude portrait like this from a female artist in the 1900s was unexpected and I’m very happy to have find it as this painting demonstrates how comfortable she is with herself, her body and career as a painter. Modersohn embraces femininity showing herself surrounded by flowers and holding them gracefully in her hands, she shows the beauty of the naturel female form without idealising it. Her technique was also something that influenced my style of painting, being from the period of early expressionism her style is very painterly and is like that of impressionist Paul Cezanne. Looking at her style I began to test it out on small pieces of canvas paper seeing how it would look and if I would replicate it in my final painting, while I didn’t like the outcome of the test I love the technique and the texture it had. The rough paint strokes did influence me however I felt I should use different art styles when depicting the different portraits of myself, one being much rougher and harsher to show the idea that it’s a blurring reflection, a shadow, the others being more refined and clearer in comparison to illustrate a clear difference.
Carl Jung is psychoanalyst, one of the major players who developed the groundwork for early psychology. Jung was obsessed with the idea of the “unconscious” and aspects of the self, creating new terms to fit in with his theories and obsession of human identity. These terms include things such as the Anima and Animus, ego consciousness, the persona and the shadow what do these all mean and what do these all mean in relation to my work. Jungs theories are an exploration of the self and the many layers of a person's psyche, applying these theories to my own work have helped me address the exploration of my own trues self and the many layers of my own identity. Many of Jungs aspects of the psyche are represented in my work with the first being the persona, a mask appearance the ideal me that is presented to the world ("Carl Jung: Individuation Process", 2019). While it isn't necessarily a lie it isn't exactly a truth as it is self-constructed by the self and changes according to society or context. The persona is represented in the painting to the far right as hyper feminine, mimicking the pose in Paula Modersohn-Becker self-portrait, (I've selected this painting as I believe it is one of the most feminine paintings I've seen that celebrates female beauty and grace). The figure to the far left is a representation as both the shadow and the animus, the weakness and negative aspects that people wish to remain sinking in the sea and the inner masculine personality. Below the figure, white flowers grow these flowers however do have significance and are in fact white Chrysanthemum, signifiers of truth. My reason for incorporating these flowers is because I want to show that the shadow and the animus/anima are important aspects of ourselves just as important as the persona (the positive aspects), theses aspects are the truth, and work in relation to what Jung believed, that if one is to truly grow as a person, one must become aware of their shadow and persona, balancing them out.
From the realizing of the shadow and the persona we can finally discover our true selves, this discovery of the self is represented in the nude portrait in the middle painting. Within the figure in the centre of the canvas I attempted to incorporate both aspects from the persona and the shadow to make it appear as an equal balance of both, while the figure is nude like the persona the figure appears aware of their own nudity and stares down the audience who stares down the viewers, the figure is active within the scene not an object to be gazed at. I made sure that the centre figure represented my true self, that I addressed this aspect with authenticity, to show who I truly am.
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