Imogen Cunningham @imogen44posts-blog - Tumblr Blog

reference list

Mansfield, Nick. Subjectivity : Theories of the Self from Freud to Haraway, Allen & Unwin, 2000. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uow/detail.action?docID=286495. Created from uow on 2019-04-04 19:21:18.

Barker, C. (2012) Cultural Studies : Theory and Practice. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.

Howes, D 2005, ‘Skinscapes: embodiment, culture, and environment’, in C Classen (ed.), The book of touch, Berg, New York, pp. 27-39.

Coleman, E. (2001). Aboriginal Painting: Identity and Authenticity. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 59(4), 385-402. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/stable/432291

Barker, C. (2012) Cultural Studies : Theory and Practice. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.

Mansfield, Nick. Subjectivity : Theories of the Self from Freud to Haraway, Allen & Unwin, 2000. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uow/detail.action?docID=286495. Created from uow on 2019-04-04 19:21:18.

Creative Identity

Our creative identity is how our artistic practice has influence the art world. It is how the art world sees your work. It is also how we as an artist see our own work and how that affects our own identity.

Artmeisia Gentileschi’s self portrait shows herself at work, creating a painting. Being a female artist in the 1500s was challenging as women were not taken seriously but Gentileschi made her mark on the art world during the time and proved that she did have a creative identity during the time despite being a women.

Fractured Identity

Our identity can be fragile and insecure. When our identity is fractured it is a result of our self perception being broken and lost.

“It is a sad fate for a man to die too well known to everybody else, and still unknown to himself.” (Bacon)

francis Bacon is an artist who constantly struggled with his sense of identity and through his self portraits it is clear that his perception of his self was confused and insecure. His self portraits explore his fractured identity.

Social Identity

Although we are individuals, as a collective we have to work together to form society. We collectively form our social identity based on the class that we associate with, the people and groups that we chose to belong too.

Honore Victorin Daumier was a French print maker in the 1800s who produced many works that revolved around the theme of the social and political climate of the time. He used his work as a commentary on society.

Authenticity

Authenticity is producing something that is original and individual. In a world of mass production and consumption authenticity is rare but valued, genuine artefacts are not a copy and were created to be an individual.

“Authentic art is individual and original” Coleman (2001)

Jackson Pollock’s artwork encompasses what authentic art look like. His work when originally produced was a one of a kind and never seen before. His techniques of layering thick paint was never seen before.

Essentialism

Essentialism the idea that we all have a set of personal characteristics that makes someone who they are. The essence of a ones self makes them unique and different from every other individual. Strongly tied to ones self identity.

“Here words are not taken as having referents with essential or universal qualities so that language ‘makes’ rather than ‘finds’. Identity is not a thing but a description in language.” Barker (2012)

Artist Frida Kahlo’s work often explored ideas around essentialism, after he accident her identity was completely tied up with what she was not physically able to do. Her work explores who she saw herself and what essence made her herself.

Creative Influence

Creative influence suggests that artists are creatively challenged, inspired and or use other artists work to create new art. Creative influence informs all artists in some way or another, as artists learn new skills or view art they are consciously or subconsciously being creatively influenced. This is an important process in any artist’s practice.

Artists are constantly drawing on others artists for influence such as Duchamp’s artwork “LHOOQ”. he has clearly appropriate the Mona Lisa and completely turned it into a new work.

Sensory Knowledge

All of our organs are believed to have some form of knowledge, that they know what they have to do. Sensory Knowledge suggests that we have bodily intelligence that makes all of our senses have just as much knowledge as one another, for example the ear has the same amount of knowledge as the tongue. This is the same for all five of our senses.

“their hands know: they are skilled workers. Their skin knows; they have an intimate knowledge of their physical surroundings.” Howes (2015)

In my work “untitled” 2018 the audience is encourages to use their touch as well as their sight to engage with the work. The work made of wool and fabric asks the audience to think about the connotations these materials have to them. The use of senses is highly important to my work as its gives the work meaning.

Subjectivity

The idea of subjectivity suggests that every person has an identity and our identity encompasses all of our social constructs. Subjectivity is being a person and the process of becoming ones self, which is an ongoing process. Identity is closely related to subjectivity and can not be separated from the concept. How do we see ourselves and how does the world around us see us.

“subjectivity: the condition of being a person and the processes by which we become a person; that is, how we are constituted as cultural subjects and how we experi-ence ourselves;” Barker (2012)

Ben Quilty’s 2012 self portrait “after Afghanistan” is a Quilty questioning his identity after he has been Afghanistan documenting the war. This work suggests that over time we change and how we see ourselves and as a result how the world sees us. Quilty’s experiences during his time in the war and meeting soldiers has changed him.

Overdetermination

Overdetermination suggests that the smallest and what we would consider to be the most unimportant of behaviours are all determined by a deep psychological instinct. When the the unconscious meets the conscious, and a slip of the tongue happens for example, freud suggests that nothing is an accident and that all our behaviour are effected by our unconsciousness.

“Perhaps our need to trivialise the obscure material at the root of our minds makes us want to see the surfacing of the unconscious in everyday life as accidental and unimportant, rather than the product of our deepest experiences and investments.” The artist Yayoi Kusama is constantly engaging with her unconscious in her artworks and challenges us to think about how our psychological overdetermines our everyday behaviours through her use of repetition in her works. The repetition in her works is something that Kusama sees everywhere because of her disease.

The Unconscious

The unconscious is the idea that there are parts of our brain that are “locked”away from our conscious mind and every so often it breaks through and we become aware of it. Freud suggested that this could happen through our dreams and have no obvious relation to our real life.

“Another mental domain must exist, with its own unfamiliar logic, that was releasing messages, or at least images, into the conscious mind.”( Mansfeild, 2000)

An artist that taps into the idea of the unconscious is Del Kathryn Barton. Barton’s work reflect a chaotic scene where there is so much happening the audience’s brain feels unable to process what they are looking at. Her drawings are immensely detailed and colourful, these attributes make the audience wonder what is in our brain that we don't see or fully understand.

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

Imogen Cunningham