Unknown Familiar Story of Us: Personal Mythologies
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Unknown Familiar Story of Us: personal mythologies Yiwon Park Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Fine Arts College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales 2013 1 Acknowledgements Special thanks to my supervisor Peter Sharp for his encouragement and insightful supervision during my MFA research. Thanks to my initial supervisor Mike Esson for supporting my research in the beginning. Thanks to Andrew Christofiedes for his advise on my work and support. Thanks to Sylvia Ross, Bruce Latimer and Kathy Yeh for supporting my art. Thanks to All my friends Peter Wildman, Bettina Bruder, Wenmin Li, Bernardo Bento, Virginia Mewer, Mike Barnard, Dominique Hindmash, Paul Williams and Chelsea Lehmann who share their knowledge and intuition in both joyful and tough moments of our lives. I do appreciate all the support from COFA, School of Art. Thanks to Jo Elliot, Leong Chan for administration assistance. Thanks to James Ward, Alex Bryne and Francois Breuaellaud-Limondi from Tool Room for the amazing assistance. 2 Abstract This research investigates the means of drawing personal narratives through visual symbols. In this, I position myself as both subject matter and medium to engage with various realms of reality. The resulting autobiographical narratives deal with feelings of insecurity in my place of existence. Based on this insecurity, I develop the concept of the ‘unknown familiar’ as a methodology to explore individual sensitivities within a collective unconscious. The ‘unknown familiar’ draws on Freud's uncanny and Jung’s theory of archetypes to describe that unfamiliar and ambiguous feeling that occurs in the gap between personal metaphors and archetypal symbols. Supporting the development of this framework in my own practice, I examine the production of personal narratives through symbols and metaphors by prominent artists such as Beuys, Bourgeois, Bosch and Smith. These are studied from psychological, cultural and mythological perspectives. Creating images is used as an active and organic process of investigating my own thoughts and emotions. In my practice I search for images that underlie my conscious and subconscious, and operate through dreams, memories and everyday life. Through these, my inter-disciplinary studio practice visualises the intangible sense of my own presence. My psychological motivation is to overcome the insecurity of uncertainty, and based on this I explore otherness and the absurd through personal symbolism. 3 Contents Abstract 3 Contents 4 List of Illustrations 5 Introduction 9 Chapter 1: Feeling Insecure 15 1.1. Where Do We Live? 15 1.2. Unknown Familiar 17 Between the Uncanny and the Archetype 17 1.3. Methodology 23 The Cognition of Feelings Through Image Association 24 Metaphoric Tales and Symbols 26 Chapter 2: Narrative 33 2.1. A Psychological Perspective 34 Emotion as Raw Material 34 Body, Memory and Emotion 34 2.2. A Cultural perspective 43 The Image of Hell in Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delight and the Korean Buddhist Painting Jiokdo 43 Images Collected Through Cultural Consumption 47 2.3. A Mythological Perspective 52 Mythology 52 Disguise 56 Chapter 3: Responses to the feeling of insecurity 62 3.1. Beuys’ and Namjun Paik’s response: The Artist as Shaman 63 Reconciling Fear and connecting with different realms of reality 63 3.2. My response 68 Telling Stories Through Drawing, Painting and Sculpture 68 The Altar: Installation 69 Perform though Personal Space 71 Chapter 4: Conclusion 77 Bibliography 79 4 List of Illustrations Figure 1: Diagram outlining research themes. Author’s diagram Figure 2: Yiwon Park, Unknown Familiar, 2012. Acrylic on paper, 25 x 35cm. Figure 3: Francis Bacon, Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, c.1944. Oil paint on 3 boards, 940 x 737 mm. <http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/bacon-three-studies-for-figures-at-the-base- of-a-crucifixion-n06171> Figure 4: Hieronymus Bosch, detail of Hell from The Garden of Earthly Delight, c.16th century. Oil on wood panel. <http://www.hieronymus-bosch.org/The-Garden-of-Earthly-Delights.html> Figure 5: Still from The Birds. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Universal Pictures, 1963. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056869/> Figure 6: Yiwon Park, My Own Pacific Ocean, 2012. Mixed media on paper, 30 x 21cm. Figure 7: Yiwon Park, My Own Pacific Ocean, 2012. Mixed media on paper, 30 x 21 cm. Figure 8: Louise Bourgeois, Untitled, 1950. Ink on paper, 50.8 x 33cm. <http://hatch.uwe.ac.uk/research/doad/16.jpg>. Figure 9: Louise Bourgeois, Ode a Ma Mere (plate 6), 1995. Drypoint, 30.4 x 30.4 cm, suite of 9 prints. <http://arttattler.com/designartofthebook.html> Figure 10: Miss X’s drawing, from J. Chodorow. Jung on Active Imagination (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 99. Figure 11: Yiwon Park, Unknown Familiar, 2011. Mixed media on canvas, 120 x 90cm. Figure 12: Yiwon Park, Unknown Familiar, 2011. Mixed media on canvas, 120 x 90cm. Figure 13: Yiwon Park, Unknown Familiar, 2011. Mixed media on canvas, 120 x 90cm. Figure 14: Symbols in Korean folk art from Yeol-Su Yoon and Roderick Whitfield, Folk painting (London: Laurence King, 2003), 359. 5 Figure 15: Yiwon Park, Personal Symbols, 2009. Pencil on paper, 28 x 23cm each Figure 16: Australian Aboriginal symbols, <http://aboriginalart.com.au/gallery/iconography.html> Figure 17: Yiwon Park, Life is a Boiled Egg, 2012. Mixed media on canvas. Figure 18: Louise Bourgeois, Femme Maison, 1946-1947. Oil and ink on linen, 91.4 x 35.6 cm. Courtesy Cheim & Read and Hauser & Wirth, Photo: Rafael Lobato. <http://fy.rsoo.de/pdfs/louise_e.htm> Figure 19: Yiwon Park, Unknown Familiar Story, 2011. Mixed media on paper, 30 x 21 cm. Figure 20: Yiwon Park, Unknown Familiar, 2012. Mixed media on paper, 21 x 30cm. Figure 21: Louise Bourgeois, Cell (Choisy), 1990–1993. Mixed media, size variable. Collection Ydessa Hendeles Art Foundation, Toronto, Photo: Marcus Leith Figure 22: Yiwon Park, Untitled, 2012. Mixed media on cotton, 100 x 100cm. Figure 23: Yiwon Park, You Were Not There, 2012. Mixed media on cotton, 120 x 90cm. Figure 24: Yiwon Park, I Was There, 2012. Mixed media on cotton, 120 x 90cm. Figure 25: Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights, c.1503–1504. Oil on wood panels, 220 x 389 cm. Museo del Prado, Madrid. <http://www.hieronymus-bosch.org/The-Garden-of-Earthly- Delights.html> Figure 26: Jiokdo (detail – hell), 파주 보광사 명부전 지옥도 . <http://www.ibulgyo.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=89575> Figure 27: Katy Perry, Firework album cover, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firework_(song) Figure 28: Yiwon Park, Do You Ever Feel Like A Plastic Bag?, 2011. Mixed media on paper, 30 x20cm. Figure 29: Yiwon Park, Do You Ever Feel Like A Plastic Bag?, 2011. Mixed media on paper, 30 x 20cm. Figure 30: An image of a plastic bag chosen from a random Internet search, from http://qldconservation.org.au/plastic-bag-free-queensland/ Figure 31: Movie poster for E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial from <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083866/> 6 Figure 32: Yiwon Park, I must phone home?, 2011. Acrylic on canvas, 40 x 30cm. Figure 33: Yiwon Park, Egg Moon With Rabbit Ear, 2012. Acrylic on canvas, 40 x 30cm. Figure 34: Hieronymus Bosch, detail from The Garden of Earthly Delight, <http://www.hieronymus- bosch.org/The-Garden-of-Earthly-Delights-panel-2.html> Figure 35: Yiwon Park, Red Riding Blanket, 2013. Acrylic on paper, 25 x 35. Figure 36: Jesus Christ, <http://www.jesuschristsavior.net/Jesus.html> Figure 37: Seated Buddha, Unified Silla dynasty, 8th century. Granite, h.326 cm. Sokkuram Cave- Temple, Gyongju, South Gyongsang Province National Treasure no. 24 <http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/kobs/hd_kobs.htm> Figure 38: Movie poster, Superman Returns, <http://www.superherohype.com/gallery/superman/superman-returns/posters/73985- supermanbusshelterjpg#joomimg> Figure 39: Wandjina from Frederick O’Connor, Ursula O’Connor and Sue O’Connor, "Wandjina, graffiti and heritage," in Compelling Cultures: Representing Cultural Diversity and Cohesion in Multicultural Australia Figure 40: Yiwon Park, How To Play A Rabbit, 2011. Mixed media on paper, 30 x 20cm each. Figure 41: Yiwon Park, How could I cross my pacific ocean, resin sculpture and Manly sand, installation size 150 x 60 x 30cm. Figure 42: Kiki Smith, Mine, 1999. Glass, 38 units vary from 95 x 11 x 12 cm to 18 x 18 x 10 cm. Photo by Ellen Page Wilson, courtesy of Pace Wildenstein, New York. <http://www.oxfordartonline.com/public/page/smithinter> Figure 43: Yiwon Park, Self-portraits, 2010. Ceramic, height 18 cm. Figure 44: Kiki Smith, Sirens, 2007. Set of six cast bronze sculptures with black patina, size variable. Matt Suib and Ellen Page Wilson. <http://www.publicartfund.org/view/exhibitions/5912_whitney_biennial_2002_- _sirens_and_harpies#sthash.aKr2sEtY.dpuf> 7 Figure 45: Yiwon Park, When The Night Falls Into Me, 2013. Mixed media on paper, 25 x 35cm. Figure 46: Joseph Beuys, How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare at the Galerie Schmela in Düsseldorf, 1965. Mervyn Horton Bequest Fund 1997 Figure 47: Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917. Porcelain, 36 x 48 x 61cm. <http://www.stephenhicks.org/tag/marcel-duchamp/> Figure 48: Joseph Beuys, The Silence of Marcel Duchamp is Overrated, 1964. Paper, oil, colour, ink, felt, chocolate and photography, 157 x 178 x 2 cm. Museum Schloss Moyland, Sammlung van der Grinten, Photo © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2008. <http://arttattler.com/archivejosephbeuys.html> Figure 49: NamJun Paik, Cherish Performance for Joseph Beuys, 1990. <http://blog.ohmynews.com/seulsong/454862> Figure 50: Yiwon Park, Personal Altar, 2013. Mixed media installation, size variable. Figure 51: Joseph Beuys, I Like America and America Likes Me, 1974. Week-long action with coyote at Rene Block Gallery, New York, Courtesy Ronald Feldman Arts, New York.