Unnmaning 3 Print

Unnaming #3, 2019,watercolour and soft pastel on plaster on panel, 5x5'. My practice is an exploration of re-enchantment and what it means, on a phenomenological level, to be human. The focus of my artistic investigations throughout my MFA has been centered around perception and our relationship to our physical world. My interest in perception is motivated not only by my fascination with the potential animism of the physical world, but equally by my captivation with the relationship between nonsense and meaning. Significantly for me, I see these relationships as chiasmic - as continuums, not bifurcations. Merleau-Ponty explains the chiasm through the metaphor of holding one’s own hand, the external sensations and internal perceptions are intertwined, inextricable. Further, I’ve been interested in theories which suggest that contemporary art discourses seem to be re-enchanted by an old idea of the kinship between art and a belief in the animism of the physical world. Ideas of animism and a chiasmic awareness of ourselves within our environment continue to be relevant today in relation to New Materialisms. New Materialist theories are environmentalist and feminist ways of interpreting the agency of the material world through language and scientific investigation. For example, these theories explain that the differentiation between humans and objects, or between words and meanings, are not simple dualities but complicated interrelations between internal and external sensations and perceptions. My paintings use the malleability of visual language to address the ambiguities of perception. Watercolour on plaster, reminiscent of fresco, evokes religious and spiritualist painting histories which were entangled in an enchantment or animism of the physical world. The absorbency of the surface speaks about the permeability of the veil between internal perceptions and the external world. The small found objects function as playful and ambiguous punctuation marks in a conversation that the paintings seem to have amongst themselves. The process of working with these materials is also enmeshed in metaphor. The ease with which I sand or erase the painted marks allows the integration of a comradery with uncertainty. It is a malleable decision-making process where the composition reveals itself gradually, where I can develop a sense of trust that the materials are working with me. It is almost as if the paint and the surface have some say, some potential agency equal to my own. By sanding, I’m allowing for a process of undefining, allowing the materials to speak in ambiguities. The idea of “Unnaming,” is central to my interpretation of New Materialisms. As opposed to semiotics which rely on the separation and categorization of objects and subjects, New Materialisms speak about quantum mechanics, and string theory. These theories suggest that the nature of our existence is not separable into parts, but infinite. New Materialisms therefore disagree with the separation of subject and object. For me, this means that objects need to be unnamed. The paintings are decidedly not titled. The lack of titles allows for the viewer’s perceptions of the paintings to be chiasmic, to be undefined. My practice is a consideration of our perceptions of ourselves in space, and an attempt to acknowledge the continuous and intertwined nature of that relationship. I wonder about ourselves and our perceptions as enmeshed within our environment and I’m enchanted by not knowing where, on that continuum, meaning truly resides.