Surface image self

The work in my Master of Fine Arts show consists of seven large oil paintings on a paper structure with collage, twelve mixed-media prints, and three mixed-media drawings. I have moved away from making art based on perceptual experience of the environment toward work that derives from my personal experiences as a painter, woman, mother, and wife of a military man. The work is autobiographical, but it is not necessary that the viewer understand my particular motivations. I want the paintings to suggest human experience and remain open to multiple interpretations. My interest in a texturally rich surface that xploits the plasticity of paint led to collage elements and thick layers of paint. I strive to produce work that is gestural, maintains a sense of immediacy, and allows the viewer to see the development of the mark making. Since my painting process is intuitive, I often define, obliterate, and redefine an image several times over trying to reach that goal.

SURFACE IMAGE SELF by Maijorie Lindsay A thesis submitted to the faculty of The University of Utah in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts Department of Art The University of Utah June 1996 Copyright ® Marjorie Lindsay 1996 All Rights Reserved THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH COLUEGE OF FINE ARTS SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE APPROVAL of a thesis submitted by M a r j o r i e L in d s a y This thesis has been read by each member of the following supervisory committee and by majority vote has been found to be satisfactory. ---------- Chairman: ^ /David Dornan iI ~ ~ O n TJ-f 1 o R o b e r t K l e in s c hm id t THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS FINAL READING APPROVAL To the Graduate Council of T he University of Utah: M a r j o r i e L in d s a y I have read the thesis o f ____________________________________________________ in its final form and have found that (1) its format, citations, and bibliographic style are consistent and acceptable; (2) its illustrative materials including figures, tables, and charts are in place; and (3) the final manuscript is satisfactory to the Supervisory Committee and is ready for submission to the Graduate School. Da David Chairperson, Supervisory Committee Approved for the Major Department R. D. Wi l s o n Chairperson Approved for the Graduate Council Dean, College of Fine Arts ABSTRACT The work in my Master of Fine Arts show consists of seven large oil paintings on a paper structure with collage, twelve mixed-media prints, and three mixed-media drawings. I have moved away from making art based on perceptual experience of the environment toward work that derives from my personal experiences as a painter, woman, mother, and wife of a military man. The work is autobiographical, but it is not necessary that the viewer understand my particular motivations. I want the paintings to suggest human experience and remain open to multiple interpretations. My interest in a texturally rich surface that exploits the plasticity of paint led to collage elements and thick layers of paint. I strive to produce work that is gestural, maintains a sense of immediacy, and allows the viewer to see the development of the mark making. Since my painting process is intuitive, I often define, obliterate, and redefine an image several times over trying to reach that goal. TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT................................................................................................................................ iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS......................................................................................................... vi SURFACE IMAGE SELF....................................................................................................... 1 When My Mother Came to Visit................................................................................. 1 IMAGERY................................................................................................................................... 3 Formal Considerations................................................................................................... 5 CONCLUSION........................................................................................................................... 8 LIST OF PRINTS............................................................................................................. :........ 9 PRINTS....................................................................................................................................... 12 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY................................................................................................ 31 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank the faculty, staff, and fellow graduate students of the Art Department for their never ending support throughout my graduate program. 1 especially want to thank Sam Wilson for his insistence that I explore every possibility; Dave Doman for being an example of pure energy and enthusiasm; Bob Kleinschmidt for offering his invaluable and thoughtful criticism; and Tony Smith for helping me realize and trust my voice. I also wish to thank my husband, Brandon, and my son, Tyler, for their continual love, encouragement, and sacrifices which helped make this goal possible. Thanks also go to my parents: my mother, Ann Palmer, for helping me discover parts of my work that I did not recognize; my father, Alan Palmer, for his continued support and documentation of the exhibition. SURFACE IMAGE SELF When My Mother Came to Visit It is late. Late in the year to be rewriting a thesis. I thought I had it completed once or twice by now. I felt pretty good about explaining a chronological development of my work during the two years I have been in graduate school. But then my mother came to town. She made realize I could reveal more. I had not seen her in nearly two years. She came from Michigan to help out with my four-year-old son during this period of stress. Three weeks prior to my exhibition, the Air Force decided my husband was needed elsewhere. My mother has come before under similar circumstances, but she has not seen my work for two years. It has changed a lot. I anxiously awaited the first time she could see the new paintings still in progress at my studio. I had a feeling that she would not relate to an abstract language nor to the use of an archetypal figure to represent my life experiences. Because we have been so distant from one another since I left home twelve years ago at age seventeen, I thought she couldn't possibly know the person who generated these images. I was wrong. Her reaction was remarkable in its sensitivity. She looked for a long time during that first studio visit, mostly commenting on the brilliant color and large format. But later she spoke about a deeper response. She said she knew why my paintings had hidden images embedded in paint. She spoke of how as a child I held everything in. I did not openly express anger, embarrassment, sorrow, jealousy, or even humor. She compared me to my sister, my only sibling. Kathy was the one who blew up and screamed every word, so everyone knew her state. I was the one who buried it all deep inside, never letting anyone in. My mother feels that these paintings communicate who I am. The intense color, aggressive marks, and many thick layers of pigment reflect the energy that I stored inside my introverted persona. She knows who made these works; she said they were just like me. Her response assured me that this group of work is significant. It is honest. That is my most ardent wish: the work must come from the gut. During my graduate program, I changed my focus from relatively realistic observation of the exterior world to representation of my inner world. I arrived at graduate school with an inventory of realistic landscape paintings. They were crisp, clean, extremely close up views of rocks, trees, and water that emphasized pattern, texture, and shape. During the first summer, I realized that my belief that the best, most honest work derives from personal experience conflicted with my choice of subject since I have spent little time in the remote landscape as an adult. My life was and is about being a woman, a painter, a mother, and the wife of a military man. I wanted my work to derive from more personal everyday experiences that questioned how I exist in the world and not just how I look at the world. My current paintings have to do with losing, finding, and hiding images and with paint as an expressive vehicle. IMAGERY The imagery in my paintings reflects my present life yet often echoes my childhood. One of my core childhood memories is of having an operation to enlarge the urinaiy tract when I was four years old. I was not told the truth about what was going to happen to my body. I remember being made to take off my underpants, being held down for a blood sample, being asked to count backwards from one hundred, and how much it hurt afterwards. I remember thinking that since I could not yet count to one hundred forwards, much less backwards, they would not operate. I was wrong. I am sure this experience made me a more cautious and shy child. Another equally strong memory is about being deceived by my best friend at around nine years old. She came from a fairly wealthy family whereas my parents were of the working middle class. We did fine financially, but our home was always a work in progress. My parents did not want to borrow money to fix it up all at once. It was difficult for me and my sister to invite anyone over because we were embarrassed by our house. However, I invited Valerie to spend the night. She told everyone in our small school that we were poor and lived in an awful house, and they should not be friends with me. I had no best friends after that, by choice. I discovered early about the realities of confiding your secrets to anyone and the emotions from broken trust. I developed a sense of what people wanted to hear, what they expected of me, and I was able to provide it for them. Because of this, I developed a part of myself that other people did not know. Revealing authentic parts of myself continues to be difficult for me to this day. When I paint, I can control what is hidden and how much is revealed. I want viewers to feel that the work represents human experience, but it is not necessary that they find the particular images in the paintings. I summon imagery from situations in my present life that also resonates from earlier experiences, although I usually do not recognize one or the other until after the painting is completed. For example, many paintings and monoprints in this series relate to the question of whether or not to have a second child. My desire for another baby conflicts with my great fear of combining motherhood with my painting career. At the same time, the imagery produced from this source also raises echoes of my childhood operation. When I begin a painting, it is usually with only a general sense of what figures will be in the piece. The figures appear, become defined, and are obliterated, often several times over. Armless figures, sets of spread legs, whole bodies and shadowy figures with expectations recur. A figure that is tripping and falling appears in two of the large paintings. These paintings represent my interior world where only the self exists. I am a solitary person. I do not socialize comfortably. I do not have any close friends besides my spouse, and I really do like being alone. My personal experiences stay private. Perhaps this is why I generally edit a painting down to a central, singular figure. Another consistency throughout the paintings is ambiguous space. Although figures and objects occupy space together, it is unclear if there are walls, beds, floors, or tabletops. I am influenced by Susan Rothenberg's similar use of space. At times the space in her densely worked surfaces seems deeply illusionary and at other times up front and shallow. I want to use space to represent a feeling of instability and insecurity, which in part relates to being associated with the military. We never know if the next day will bring orders for us to pack up and move. Nothing is permanent; I have established no roots for twelve years. Throughout the paintings, 1 feel a sense of a person who is being observed and judged by shadowy others. The shadows represent expectations that others hold, the high expectations I have of myself, being watched, vulnerability, and the other self that few people know. For example, "Three Months Now" began as two vessel forms, which I related at the time to my ambivalence over having a second child. It evolved into a figure lying down with legs spread, surrounded by shadowy watching figures. Although these figures may also have had expectations for me, I was not uncomfortable being in an exposed position. To me, childbirth is the only time physical exposure of that sort in front of strangers is easy. Formal Considerations I want an image embedded in the surface, disguised by and emerging from rather than applied to it. My interest in subtle conflict between surface and image led me to incorporate collage elements. Paper and canvas pieces lie on the surface and jut out from it. This provides an underlying structure of interruptions to whatever image develops. The crevices and folds act as collection points for large chunks of paint, which cause unforeseen relationships between image and pigment. I am concerned that my paintings not appear precious. Using paper as the main structure, allowing torn paper bags and canvas strips to peel up from the backing, and hanging the paintings directly on the wall with carpet tacks all grow out of this concern. I do want them to seem labored over, because they are. Part of my process involves a repetition of finding, losing, retrieving, and finally hiding representational imagery. This results in a densely worked surface that exposes the history of the mark-making while maintaining a sense of urgency. The artists who have influenced me most are prolific workers: Frank Auerbach, Susan Rothenberg, and Jim Dine all trust that following intuitive processes, even if it means losing a day's work to editing, will result in a better painting. They all know that a painting or drawing must evolve and must always remain open for drastic change during the process. Auerbach is the most obsessive of these artists. It is not uncommon for him to have two to three hundred painting sessions with a single model for a relatively small painting. I relate to his need to continue working and reworking until the painting process describes a new truth within something familiar. Two contradictory traits show up as I work. I am impatient and want immediate results from quick, spontaneous applications of paint. But I also sustain long repeated painting sessions on one work. I continue working until these heavily clotted surfaces of gesture, paint, and images look direct and expressive. A visiting artist once remarked that I had a high need for chaos, but that I might consider the virtues of "prepared chaos." He suggested that I spend a great deal of time mixing large amounts of paint before I start so that there are few distractions once the painting session is under way. This has proved to be a valuable tip. It took me a while to realize that I need gorgeous colors and luscious surfaces, even though these are not fashionable. Two of the earliest paintings in the series are nearly monochromatic. As I continued working I realized I needed a greater range of color to develop complexity. I want to seduce myself with the image, to draw myself into it, and have enough richness to sustain my attention. I use very close value relationships to reduce contrast; this helps disguise the images. At times it nearly obliterates the form. Much of the formal excitement of this series of paintings for me was in seeing how close I could come to the border between interestingly obscured and unintelligible. I admit openly that I follow a romantic path. I need to expose the plasticity of the paint. I am addicted to the sensuality of pushing paint around with my fingers, brushes, and knives. It must have its own vitality as a substance apart from tire ability to create illusion. I want the viewer to be constantly aware of the interaction between hand and medium. CONCLUSION Although I have discussed formal and conceptual issues separately, they are totally intertwined when I paint. Ultimately, I am interested in the emotions, thoughts, and situations that people share but do not discuss. I speak through paint and image, persistently but quietly. Francis Bacon once said, "When you're outside a tradition, as every artist is today, one can only want to record one's own feelings about certain situations as closely to one's own nervous system as one possibly can" (Sylvester 1987, 43). The part of me I cannot share in words I paint. I am glad my mother came to visit. LIST OF PRINTS 10 1. Three Months Now Oil and collage on paper 73 x 85 inches 2. Speak Please Oil and collage on paper 81 x 71 inches 3. Tuesday Finally/Legs Oil and collage on paper 80 x 75 V2 inches 4. Alone I Say Oil and collage on paper 84 x 82 inches 5. Will You? Oil and collage on paper 83 x 82 inches 6. The Room Oil and collage on paper 81 x 78 inches 7. Sometimes Falling Oil and collage on paper 81 x 83 inches 8. What I Gave My Son/One Mixed media print 42 x 29V2 inches 9. What I Gave My Son/Two Mixed media print 40 1/4 x 19V^> inches 10. Portrait Series Three Mixed media print 36 x 38 3/4 inches 11 11. Portrait Series Five Mixed media print 29 V2 x 40 3/4 inches 12. The Decision/Figure Two Mixed media print 34 x 37 3/4 inches 13. The Decision/Figure Five Mixed media print 40 3/4 x 28 V2 inches 14. The Decision/Figure Six Mixed media print 39 V2 x 28 3/4 inches 15. The Decision/Figure Seven Mixed media print 40 1/4 x 29 5/8 inches 16. Pear One Gouache, acrylic, graphite, collage 24 x 21 inches 17. Pear Two Gouache, acrylic, graphite, collage 23 3/4 x 21 inches 18. Pear Three Gouache, acrylic, graphite, collage 24 x 21 1/8 inches Print 1 Three Months Now Oil and collage on paper 73 x 85 inches 14 Print 2 Speak Please Oil and collage on paper 81 x 71 inches 15 Print 3 Tuesday Finally/Legs Oil and collage on paper 80 x 75 Vi inches 16 Print 4 Alone I Say Oil and collage on paper 84 x 82 inches Print 5 Will You? Oil and collage on paper 83 x 82 inches 18 Print 6 The Room Oil and collage on paper 81 x 78 inches 19 Print 7 Sometimes Falling Oil and collage on paper 81 x 83 inches 20 Print 8 What I Gave My Son/One Mixed media print 42 x 29 xh inches 21 Print 9 What I Gave My Son/Two Mixed media print 40 1/4 x 19 V2 inches 22 Print 10 Portrait Series Three Mixed media print 36 x 38 3/4 inches 23 Print 11 Portrait Series Five Mixed media print 36 x 38 3/4 inches 24 Print 12 The Decision/Figure Two Mixed media print 34 x 37 3/4 inches 25 Print 13 The Decision/Figure Five Mixed media print 34 x 37 3/4 inches 26 Print 14 The Decision/Figure Six Mixed media print 40 3/4 x 28 Vi inches Print 15 The Decision/Figure Seven Mixed media print 40 1/4 x 29 5/8 inches Print 16 Pear One Gouache, acrylic, graphite, collage 25 x 21 inches 29 Print 17 Pear Two Gouache, acrylic, graphite, collage 23 3/4 x 21 inches Print 18 Pear Three Gouache, acrylic, graphite, collage 24 x 21 1/8 inches SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Sylvester, David. The Brutality o f Fact: Interviews with Francis Bacon. 3rd ed. New York: Thames and Hudson, Inc., 1987.