Manimals

In the way that it is easy to forget the canvas that supports a painting, it is easy for me to forget that my body is an animal body. It is similarly easy to forget the contours of my environment. Rooms, cushions, furniture, dirt, plants, asphalt, rocks all recede into the background as I pursue the running checklist that drives my mind. Immersed in an intellectual, analytical environment, my reflex is to conceive of myself as a sort of hum happening above my shoulders. Three years after the first quarantine, I want to pay more attention to the flesh and bone of things. What once felt as certain as stone became so much dust to me. Ideas and institutions that I relied on have become suspect in a way that I did not expect. At this unique juncture, I have been considering what is real, what is not, and how to decide. Where is peace located when most things feel uncertain? What remains? It seems possible to me that the ultimate certainty, the ultimate touchstone, the ultimate peace, may be our bodies. In order to remember the body, it is important to be aware of the environment surrounding it, and to consider their integration. From the very beginning of this investigation I discovered quiet partnerships. In my dog, springtime twigs, leaves, and the detritus of my neighborhood plants I saw a potential way. To me, our domesticated companion animals are one of our best collaborators. Companion animals can be described in terms of ‘use', as a sort of living technology, but I prefer to think of them as; survival partners, forged together with humans in a relationship based in mutual care. They are the most excellent reminders and helpers. They recall to me that I too can communicate without talking. In exploring a less human-centered orientation, I am recording that communication in paintings, searching for my needs as an animal. These artworks are a snapshot of my thought process during this change. In my wandering curiosity, I investigate using the visual metaphor of human-animal hybrids, or ‘manimals'. These chimeric constructions help me to understand myself and to understand my place as a piece of matter. We have the same bones but in different shapes, we are social in different ways, and our similar priorities are evinced by different behavior. Their shape and my shape is a way in for me to explore what is and maybe hint at what could be. I've begun to suspect that I what I really am, is a domesticated animal. This work is a reaction, and the process involves responsive flow. It is about uncertainty, and so the making process involves uncertainty. The fabric involves fixity and consistency, the mark making involves randomness and improvisation.

Manimals by Kristina Hines A final project paper 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 and Art History The University of Utah May 2023 Copyright © Kristina Hines 2023 All Rights Reserved Introduction In the way that it is easy to forget the canvas that supports a painting, it is easy for me to forget that my body is an animal body. It is similarly easy to forget the contours of my environment. Rooms, cushions, furniture, dirt, plants, asphalt, rocks; all recede into the background as I pursue the running checklist that drives my mind. Immersed in an intellectual, analytical environment, my reflex is to conceive of myself as a sort of hum happening above my shoulders. Three years after the first quarantine, I want to pay more attention to the flesh and bone of things. What once felt as certain as stone became so much dust to me. Ideas and institutions that I relied on have become suspect in a way that I did not expect. At this unique juncture, I have been considering what is real, what is not, and how to decide. Where is peace located when most things feel uncertain? What remains? It seems possible to me that the ultimate certainty, the ultimate touchstone, the ultimate peace, may be our bodies. In order to remember the body, it is important to be aware of the environment surrounding it, and to consider their integration. From the very beginning of this investigation I discovered quiet partnerships. In my dog, springtime twigs, leaves, and the detritus of my neighborhood plants I saw a potential way. To me, our domesticated companion animals are one of our best collaborators. Companion animals can be described in terms of ‘use’, as a sort of living technology, but I prefer to think of them as survival partners, forged together with humans in a relationship based in mutual care. They are the most excellent reminders and helpers. They recall to me that I too can communicate without talking. In exploring a less human-centered orientation, I am recording that communication in paintings, searching for my needs as an animal. These artworks are a snapshot of my thought process during this change. In my wandering curiosity, I investigate using the visual metaphor of human-animal hybrids, or ‘manimals’. These chimeric constructions help me to understand myself and to understand my place as a piece of matter. We have the same bones but in different shapes, we are social in different ways, and our similar priorities are evinced by different behavior. Their shape and my shape is a way in for me to explore what is and maybe hint at what could be. I’ve begun to suspect that I what I really am, is a domesticated animal. This work is a reaction, and the process involves responsive flow. It is about uncertainty, and so the making process involves uncertainty. The fabric involves fixity and consistency, the mark making involves randomness and improvisation. The topic of this project is broad, in a way the topic is ‘everything’, the topic is the world and my relationship to it. It’s my response, and my response has been, in a way, to train myself, to practice reponding to uncertainty, while simultaneously expressing or describing the uncertainty, a record of the uncertain way that I feel. This practice is a way of recording my state, a catharsis, a place where I can be effectual and powerful, and a preparation for not being prepared. So much happened in the past three years that I could not be prepared for. It is a practice of the search for joy, beauty and connection, seeking a grounding force amidst shattering turmoil. I’m seeking my body as a dock of hope, and looking to better understand my desire for nature and my need for domesticity by looking to other domesticated animals. Where do I fit in among the organisms and things that surround me, and where is the seat of peace in that orientation? This work is a practice of reaction, response, in order to exercise a version of peace in uncertainty, in a meditation on the physical anatomy of domesticated animals – dogs, rats, cats, and people, to explore human existence in terms of these commonalities. I manipulate canvas, fabric, soil, paint, and body impressions to reflect and explore physical relationships between domesticated animals, including humans, and the environment. Background The combination of human shapes with non-human animals is maybe as old as humanity itself. The Chauvet cave, used as early as 37,000 years ago 1 contains an image of a woman incorporated with a lion or buffalo. 2 Ancient Egyptian, ancient Greek, ancient Mesopotamian, and American cultures embrace animal-human hybrids as religious entities and cultural foundations. Non-human animals and human-animal incorporations are an essential part of contemporary Indigenous American culture and spirituality. 3 The impulse to combine animals with humans, or to separate the two, runs throughout history and is deeply significant to the human conception of self, including in this current time, and in contemporary spirituality – particularly in Indigenous spirituality in North America. 4 In the Catholic spirituality I was raised in, this is not the case – humans and non-human animals are distinct and separate spiritual entities. 5 As stark as that cultural dividing line is, my experience indicates to me that this is a false impulse. The image of domesticated animals has allowed me to access things that are hard for me to confront on my own. In this body of work, the animal is part of the human self, indistinguishable as a technology and as a defining signal or clue to our proclivities, passions, presence as a species. In these paintings domesticated human and domesticated animal are one and the same. My orientation in place, time, and social cultural background guides my exploration of these figures. My position as a person living at the turn of the 21st century, in the US, female, middle class, and white contextualize the work and constrain it. Of particular significance to me is the milieu of contemporary technology. The current understanding of genetics has produced an interconnected web of interspecies heredity and relationships. Chimera no longer arise from narratives, but are as tangible as the insulin they produce. 6 As I orient myself in time, space, and culture, these technological considerations are background noise for my primary drive to explore this work. It is a social and emotional drive that has plunged me into this excavation, a transition to trust what is in my bones. A priority of this work is to call attention to the integration of the body with its environment, whether it is an environment constructed by humans, or whether it is the world outside of these constructions – what is often called the natural world. Contemporary advocates of a non-anthropocentric view, a vantage point that does not prioritize the human, investigate the relationship between people, things, and non-human animals. 7 David Abram’s 2010 book Becoming Animal advocates the use of the senses to interrogate one’s relationship to animals and objects. 8 It can feel revolutionary to trust what is in front of me, and to believe my own experience through my personal perception. There is an undercurrent here of trusting oneself, and not necessarily trusting information handed down, but evaluating for oneself. There is also an undercurrent of location, proximity, physical closeness. This is why it is important to me that these works embody a physicality that the viewer can have a body-to-body experience. Lineage This body of work is situated in a context of material and representational exploration, at the intersection of physicality and ideas. The rich history of animal representation in the more recent Western cannon has served the concerns of both individual artists and broader movements of thought. Animal representation has reached back into the past and forward to the future, and in and out of physical space. In this project, my use of the distorted, re-contextualized animal form is reminiscent of the work of Susan Rothenberg, particularly her horse series (Figures 1, 2). Rothenberg splintered the figure to explore the formal possibilities of abstract expressionist painting. 9 In her work, the form of the horse shifts in and out of frame, dissolving into and arising from the surrounding ground. Rothenberg’s horses often take on physically impossible distortions. These manipulations recall at once the physicality of the animal, and the fact that the paintings are flat suggestions of the horses’ shapes. I use distortion and surface texture to explore physicality and the flat ‘world’ of human-animal shapes. While I sometimes use reference material, I work most painting for this series using memory. The idea is to release or to reveal a drawing that is very specific to me, that comes from my ideation, my motions with the drawing tool, and my response to the materials and to the image as it emerges. The search for the image is a search for what is sufficient to make the impression of the manimal. I want the viewer to be able to fill in any gaps themselves, rather than have the image be overworked. These are also drawings made from image memory rather than from reference. There is a connection here to Rothenberg’s later work, where she paints scenes from memories of her life. 10 I want the image to be channeled through me, from my memory, from my motions. Because I want the viewer to have a rich interaction with the work, it is important to me that the objects have a rich physical presence. These priorities are addressed through the materials, their handling, and their display. As the universe of the painting, it is important that the canvas be apparent, as a fabric and as a substrate. This duality is important as I make these works in a contemplation of physical reality and the world of ideas. Sam Gilliam’s work with draped canvas explores the painted surface as an object in three dimensions. 11 His arrangement of the paint-soaked canvas permits the paintings to be perceived as objects in their own right, rather than solely as illusionistic devices (Figure 3). Paintings take on the role of sculptural works also in the work of Robert Rauschenberg, and Rupert Garcia’s La Xochitl IV Tapestry (Figures 4, 5). As I make the paintings, I am conscious of my interaction with the as I make impressions on the canvas. I consider it an interaction between one body and another. A kind of transmutation takes place as the figure is manifested on the canvas, and what remains is a record of these communicative motions. It is also important to me that there is evidence of human touch in these works. I do some painting with my hands and body, and some painting with soil that leaves hand imprints. The patchworked arrangement of content on the page recall the collage-effect painting style of Adrian Ghenie. 12 His work involves an entanglement of photorealistic elements and expressive paint handling. The resulting environments call out to sensory responses, visual cues and memory. Illusionary and physical reality come together in the painted space (Figure 6). Manimals paintings are similarly jigsawed together, with contributions from expressive paint, line and collage elements. The emphasis is to allow a meeting place between the object and the idea of the distorted human-animal. Methods In these canvases, I create a space where touchstones of the ‘natural’, (intuitive markmaking and paint made of sand, soil, and plant matter), and the domestic ‘human-natural’ can dwell side by side. My desire to bring the outside in is represented by fabrics that depict botanical illustrations. It is in this fusion of fabric, paint, and soil, that I map the manimal body. Here the domestic wild is represented. A great deal of this work depends on making impressions. Whether though finger marks in the painted sand, through gestural mark making, or through the imprint of a leaf, indexicality of a touch or imprint is essential. Evidence of touch emphasizes the corporeal. By touching and molding the elements of the canvas, my cognition is made physical. Through these motions, recorded in these materials, I can communicate without words. In responding to shadows, and folds in the wrinkled canvas, I also dialogue with the object. I can ask how my body would tell this story, and how my body perceives the themes and narrative of the painting. Being in flow state while painting, then stepping away, I use a cognitive and physical process that allows me to access emotion, thought, and memory through touch. The methods behind these paintings embrace serendipity and chance, reflecting a response to the vagaries of change. Before painting I soak the canvas, to allow buckling and other surface changes. The material reality of the woven fabric is essential to the reception of the painting. The canvas contains the painting as living beings are contained by our environment. If the canvas is the manimal environment, it affects them, shapes them, and creates them. These forces are inescapable and unavoidable for the representations on the canvas. Likewise, the sand and soil paint pulls, weighs down, and otherwise affects the canvas in a reciprocal action. As organisms make and are made by the world, painted organisms are shaped by the canvas. Dripping paint and other fluid marks evince a painting made in part by chance. The soaking preparation of the canvas removes the effects of any calendaring or chemical treatment to the canvas, and promotes more capillary action. Drips, runs, and differential absorption suggest forms that I can manipulate or emphasize further. Absorption into the canvas is a reminder of taking up and integrating the environment into oneself. When there is a break in the fabric, the capillary process behaves differently, again reflecting chance and change. An important part of this work is letting go of this work. Using precious materials with abandon, and bringing other materials, like soil, into the boundary of preciousness, highlights the arbitrary way that value is assigned. Color in these paintings is emotional, reflecting panic or danger states, joy and brightness, and sometimes solemnity. When a piece that features earth tones is placed next to one that contains neons, the bright and artificial nature of these pigments is highlighted. Above all, color in this work is to communicate intensity. Pigments from traditional paint work with neutral sand and soil to create contrast and surface texture. With the application of acrylic medium and gels, a world soaked in plastics emerges. Built up layers in the paintings can suggest an environment, or can highlight the flatness of the piece. Layers stand in for the stages of a growth process, and cumulative change. Accessibility of the painting is important for the viewer’s experience. The unstretched canvas and textured multimedia surface help the painting to be present in the viewer’s threedimensional space. Scale is calibrated to my body, paintings are either eight by eight feet, to allow for life-size figures, or measured based on my arm span. Paintings are mounted to fall naturally from a wall support, allowing them to shift and move with changes to the air pressure, or from the breeze of passersby. Results The installation of this work proceeds from frank and confident linework to more complex paintings. Viewers are introduced to the manimal concept through the straightforward depiction of Blue Rat Manimal (Figure 7), Inside (Figure 8), and then proceed to the more sculptural arrangement of Limbs (Figure 9). Located centrally is This House (Figure 10), a meditation on the relationship of the human body to earth (clay), and constructed homes. The theme of interiority continues in Rooms (Figure 11). Here, manimal figures are sequestered in individual small frames, next to each other but not touching. The figures recall many life moments that take place indoors; birth, death, drinking, moving, and being alone. The ethereal Shadows and Reflections (Figure 12) follows, with a body-painted shadow cast below a vibrant manimal. Painted on floral print chiffon, this work bridges a space between found object and painting, shadows cast through the fabric, and shadows indicated in paint and print. Never Stop (Figure 13) is an immersion in complexity, both in the abundance of gestural figures, and their hiddenness or revelation from the folds of the canvas fabric. The installation closes with Together (Figure 14), where figures, sand, clay, paint and fabric are integrated as representations and as part of a painted environment. In these works, materials with little to no human processing, such as sand and clay, dwell beside paint and highly processed printed fabric. Viewers may contemplate the complex relationships between these types of materials in connection with the figures that are amalgamations of shape rather than craft. Body and hand impressions in the work recall the human touch necessary to make these paintings, and propose a relationship between the imprint of an actual body and the painted representation of one. Drips, staining, smudging and other intentionally uncontrolled marks highlight the serendipity and chance involved in the making process. A special kind of accessibility and physical relationship between the viewer and the work is afforded by the thick materials applied to the canvas, as in This House, and in the sculptural draping of the painting, as in Limbs. Above all, this work is about relationships. In a time of following quarantine separation, relationships are on my mind, being reexamined and sometimes redefined. Separation from the world, from people, from old ideas, including ideas about myself, all have asked to be explored. In this work I investigate my relationship with things, and my relationship with painted things. These paintings are an expression of my withdrawal from a certain kind of existence, and certain kinds of concerns. They represent a withdrawal into my essentials – my body, the rooms I live in, my desire to bring the outside in. When I move my hand to paint a flower, and I observe a floral motif, I can explore the way that both are so intriguing, so comforting, and so desirable. What part of the real flower am I interested in bringing inside? Maybe the part of it that intuits when to close, and when to bloom. “New Dates for the Oldest Cave Paintings - Archaeology Magazine,” accessed March 17, 2023, https://www.archaeology.org/issues/221-1607/trenches/4551-trenches-france-chauvet-dating. 2 Smithsonian Magazine and Joshua Hammer, “Finally, the Beauty of France’s Chauvet Cave Makes Its Grand Public Debut,” Smithsonian Magazine, accessed March 17, 2023, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/francechauvet-cave-makes-grand-debut-180954582/. 3 Meaghan S. Weatherdon, “Religion, Animals, and Indigenous Traditions,” Religions (Basel, Switzerland ) 13, no. 7 (2022): 654-, https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13070654. 4 David Abram, Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology (New York (N.Y.): Vintage books, 2010). 5 Gren, Roni, The Concept of the Animal and Modern Theories of Art, n.d. 6 Nabih A Baeshen et al., “Cell Factories for Insulin Production,” Microbial Cell Factories 13 (October 2, 2014): 141, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12934-014-0141-0. 7 Abram, Becoming Animal. 8 Abram. 9 Memory - Susan Rothenberg, Documentary, accessed November 20, 2022, https://art21.org/watch/art-in-thetwenty-first-century/s3/susan-rothenberg-in-memory-segment/. 10 Memory - Susan Rothenberg. 11 Sam Gilliam and Annie Gawlak, “Solids and Veils,” Art Journal 50, no. 1 (1991): 10–11, https://doi.org/10.2307/777075. 12 “Adrian Ghenie | Pace Gallery,” n.d., https://www.pacegallery.com/artists/adrian-ghenie/. 1 Works Cited Abram, David. Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology. New York (N.Y.): Vintage books, 2010. “Adrian Ghenie | Pace Gallery.” n.d. https://www.pacegallery.com/artists/adrian-ghenie/. Baeshen, Nabih A, Mohammed N Baeshen, Abdullah Sheikh, Roop S Bora, Mohamed Morsi M Ahmed, Hassan A I Ramadan, Kulvinder Singh Saini, and Elrashdy M Redwan. “Cell Factories for Insulin Production.” Microbial Cell Factories 13 (October 2, 2014): 141. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12934-014-0141-0. Gilliam, Sam, and Annie Gawlak. “Solids and Veils.” Art Journal 50, no. 1 (1991): 10–11. https://doi.org/10.2307/777075. Gren, Roni. The Concept of the Animal and Modern Theories of Art, n.d. Magazine, Smithsonian, and Joshua Hammer. “Finally, the Beauty of France’s Chauvet Cave Makes Its Grand Public Debut.” Smithsonian Magazine. Accessed March 17, 2023. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/france-chauvet-cave-makes-grand-debut180954582/. Memory - Susan Rothenberg. Documentary. Accessed November 20, 2022. https://art21.org/watch/art-in-the-twenty-first-century/s3/susan-rothenberg-in-memorysegment/. “New Dates for the Oldest Cave Paintings - Archaeology Magazine.” Accessed March 17, 2023. https://www.archaeology.org/issues/221-1607/trenches/4551-trenches-france-chauvetdating. Weatherdon, Meaghan S. “Religion, Animals, and Indigenous Traditions.” Religions (Basel, Switzerland ) 13, no. 7 (2022): 654-. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13070654. Images Figure 1. Susan Rothenberg. 1975. Two-Tone. Acrylic and tempera. Figure 2. Susan Rothenberg. 1977. X. Figure 3. Sam Gilliam. 1970. Untitled. Figure 4. Robert Rauschenberg. 1955. Bed. Figure 5. Rupert Garcia. 2003. La Xochitl IV. Hand painted tapestry. Figure 6. Adrian Ghenie. Oil on Canvas. Figure 7. Blue Rat Manimal. 2022. Acrylic and pastel on canvas. Figure 8. Inside. 2023. Acrylic, pastel, fabric, and sand on canvas. Figure 9. Limbs. 2023. Acrylic, pastel and fabric on canvas. Figure 10. This House. 2022. Acrylic, pastel, and clay on canvas. Figure 11. Rooms. 2023. Acrylic, pastel, fabric, sand and clay on canvas. Figure 12. Shadows and Reflections. 2023. Acrylic, sand and clay on chiffon. Figure 13. Never Stop. 2023. Acrylic, pastel, sand and clay on canvas. Figure 14. Together. 2023. Acrylic, pastel, fabric, sand and clay on canvas.