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Sydney College of the Arts the University of Sydney MASTER OF Sydney College of the Arts The University of Sydney MASTER OF FINE ARTS 2015 RESEARCH PAPER THE PAINTED WORD WRITING THE IMAGE by Guy Peppin December 2015 This volume is presented as a record of the work undertaken for the degree of Master of Fine Arts at Sydney College of the Arts, The University of Sydney. Table of Contents Acknowledgments . i List of Illustrations . ii Abstract . iii Introduction . 1 Chapter 1: Writing the Image . 4 Chapter 2: Text into Paint . 10 Chapter 3: Words Becoming Colour . 28 Conclusion . 42 Bibliography . 45 Appendix I . 47 Appendix II . 49 Catalogue of Work Presented for Examination 50 List of Images . 78 Acknowledgments I would like to thank my supervisor Associate Professor Dr Ann Elias for her generosity, wisdom, and patience. I would also like to thank my Associate Supervisor Matthys Gerber for studio guidance, Dr Gregory Shields for proofreading, and the staff of SCA for their many kindnesses. i List of Illustrations Fig 1. Guy Peppin, Beachhead 2013 . p. 06 Fig 2. Cy Twombly, Cold Stream Rome, 1966 . p. 13 Fig 3. Cy Twombly, Untitled IV, 2005 (Bacchus) . p. 13 Fig 4. Cy Twombly, ‘Bolsena’, 1969. p. 15 Fig 5. Agnes Martin, ‘Not the One,’ 1966. p. 17 Fig 6. Pre-prepared graph paper used in the studio . p. 17 Fig 7. Guy Peppin, Marsyas 2011. p. 19 Fig 8. Guy Peppin, My Studio Process (a, b, c, d, e.) . p. 20 Fig 9. Guy Peppin, Untitled, Collaroy Beach. 2012 . p. 21 Fig 10. Cy Twombly Bay of Gaeta 2005. p. 21 Fig 11. Claude Monet Rouen Cathedral 1890’s. p. 23 Fig 12. Mark Rothko, ‘Untitled,’ 1953. p. 24 Fig 13. Eric Cahan Sky Series 2011 . p. 26 Fig 14. Miya Ando Spring (haru) grid, 2013. p. 27 Fig 15. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Colour Wheel, 1809 . p. 32 Fig 16. J. M. W. Turner. ‘Light and Colour (Goethe's Theory) – The Morning after the Deluge – Moses Writing the Book of Genesis.’ 1843 . p. 33 Fig 17. Mark Rothko, ‘White over Red’ 1957. p. 36 Fig 18. Jenny Holzer TOP SECRET 11 yellow merge 2012 . p. 38 Fig 19. Jenny Holzer, TOP SECRET 3. (study) . p. 39 ii Abstract This thesis ‘The Painted Word – Writing the Image’ explores the subject of written poetry and a studio process of conversion of text into abstract ‘chromatic fade’ artworks of light, colour, and emotion. During the research I looked deeply into the history of art and text, specifically processes like ekphrasis and the history of semiotics, and artists who have worked from personal or borrowed text sources, but, I discovered few artists who I can relate directly to my technique. One contemporary artist, in particular, Jenny Holzer has produced recent work that bears some relation to my studio processes. In addition, I also look at several modernist and contemporary artists who have created works that are based in a text but are not visually similar to my own, or are only visually similar but do not derive their work from text or literature. In my studio works I have been enquiring into the development of new processes and techniques, focusing on creating art I consider ‘more of its time.’ That is, refining a process in the studio that uses a ‘synthesis’ of both the traditional and hand made, and new digital studio techniques to achieve ‘experiential’ works. These works, which are text and drawing based, but painted with light and colour i.e. something like colour poems. These works are neither poems, paintings nor photographs, not landscapes or pure abstractions; they sit somewhere within the ‘expanded field’ of contemporary art as something like chromatic ‘graphic immersions.’1 They are not limited by the traditional techniques that I have used previously, but by the parameters of my studio investigation, and the expanded options of twenty-first-century technology, for my postgraduate exhibition at Sydney College of the Arts, December 2015. iii 1 Based on Rosalind Krauss’s theory described in the essay ‘Sculpture in the Expanded Field’ (1979) October, Vol. 8. (Spring, 1979), 30-44. For a related diagram please see Appendix I, i. Introduction The Painted Word – Writing the Image, initially began as a research project to understand the relationship between writing and art making in contemporary art, and in my works. To interrogate my practice, I endeavoured to develop an evolving list of research questions including “What is the relevance of writing to the form of contemporary art in the 21st century?” and “What is the relevance of writing to the practice of contemporary visual art?” In addition, “what kind of process can be developed to translate text into fields of colour?” I wanted to develop a clearer understanding of the field that my work fitted into, identify the theories and concepts behind my works, and then experiment to develop my new techniques beyond traditional limitations. The chapter Writing the Image derives from the notion that I consider my work to be ‘literary based’ art, that I write my images into existence, it concerns my research into the history of associations between text and visual art. To explain the development of my understanding in this chapter, I establish a perspective of the historical dialectic between writing and images and the concept of ekphrasis as one of the foundations of the study of art and the basis of my investigation, and understanding, of my works. I will firstly give a brief overview of the history of ‘ekphrasis,’ which I believe is important if I am to establish an understanding of its classical usage before I entertain possible contemporary applications. I then evaluate the history of aesthetics and semiotics in regards to text and image and touch on the Laocoön by Lessing, which marks the beginnings of the traditional philosophy of aesthetics that formally define, rank, and separate art into forms such as poetry or painting. I then explore Mitchell’s theory of ‘ekphrastic hope’ relates to the gap between the ‘verbal’ and the ‘visual imagination’. This is the basis for explaining the contemporary relevance of ekphrasis and my 1 work, which begins with mental images evoked by the written word, and then evolves into a visual work. I discuss Barthes’ images with words as ‘signifiers’, an important concept as my work will be displayed with image and also text in a gallery environment; that is, the work will be accompanied by captions that support the interpretation of meaning. In Text into Paint, I explore the practices of artists who work from text into visual artworks as part of their studio practice. I look briefly at literary modernists like Pollock, who made the poetry of Milton into abstract images, and Cy Twombly, the ‘literary artist’ who used poetic texts and asemic writing in a similar manner to my previous and current studio techniques. I relate my work to Twombly's paraphrasing of classical and modernist poets. I discuss John Berger’s theory that Twombly struggled against conventional usage to find his expressive voice using the dualities of text and image. By turning text into asemic (scribble) writing, Twombly folds text and imagined experience into abstract unreadable image and colour, relating directly to my process of turning text into an abstract colour field. I discuss John Berger on poetry and translation, as well as his ideas on illegibility – from ‘thinking text’ into ‘feeling abstraction’. I discuss Barthes on ‘graphisms’, relating his technical studies for large works to my colour sketches done as a translation between writing and the final image. I look at Damisch’s reinterpretation of Barthes on Twombly as instinctual archaeology: tropes of cancellation, blurring, erasure, iteration, and overlay. I explore the gestural mark as a signifier of authenticity, spontaneity and freedom in my work. I then look at erasure in drawing and my drawings as liminal spaces where the process of absorption and erasure begins. I include Brioni Fer on repetition, patterns, and seriality relating to my practice of experimenting with a series of works, repeating the same process in studio but achieving creative variations in results. I discuss Agnes Martin, whose working sketches used a grid system similar to one used by myself, as well as Giles Deleuze on what he called the ‘unconscious of representation’. I discuss seriality and modernism, and repetition as a means to generate new modes and habits of looking. I examine the concept of creativity within classical limitations: working with variations of colour within a self-imposed of format. I examine Mark Rothko's artwork as an archive of decisions; of series, repetition, colour, luminosity, containment, and infinity, in relation to my studio works. 2 In Words Becoming Colour I discuss my own, and others’ processes of translating text into an image, and words into colour. I look at Lindsey on ‘Intertime,’ studio processes; the decisions and efforts, which result in deceptively simple artwork. I discuss the large areas of colour in my work as transitional ‘liminal spaces’, which make evidence of process gradually disappear. I examine colour in my works as an experiential, emotional, and metaphorical element. I then explain the idea of horizontal lines of text as spaces of ‘intertime’, related to the spaces between brushstrokes in paintings. I explain the concept of Synthetic Synaesthesia in my practice, as the cooperation between ‘reading’ and ‘seeing.’ I outline the two kinds of Synaesthesia, and how they relate to creative practices. I then explain Synthetic Synaesthesia concerning poetic metaphor and my artistic intentions. I touch on the history of German Romanticism, which is crucial to the understanding of synaesthesia and experiential colour theory in general. I explain Goethe’s influential and poetic colour theory, and how his system has influenced my system in my studio practice.
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