It’s important to note, despite the flood of emotion that ebbs and flows around and through me I am still trying to learn new things when I can get into my studio.
The First image is my the first copper test plate I’ve done in my studio using ferric chloride to make up an Edinburgh etch solution. It worked really well, very chuffed!
I’ve done my first small copper etching since then and will put it up once I’m happy with it.
The middle self-portrait, is another ID sized image, for the sake if it, but printed on hahnemuhle paper, which I’ve not used before.
The third image is my attempt at hand-shaken aquatint on zinc. I’ve learnt an even coating by hand is possible, but I’ll be more generous with it next time, not a bad first attempt. Again pretty chuffed!
These are tough times mentally, emotionally and physically, but I’m staying in control of the situation, Ive learnt, just because I’m deeply feeling things doesn’t mean I’m not ok. I am getting out of bed in the mornings, until I can’t face the world and want to stay curled up in bed I know I’m doing fine. I won’t let the dark feelings take over my life, they are a part of the creativity and I’m learning not to be so scared of them because I can see my life is actually good. These are deeply personal admittances and it’s the MA that has allowed me to grasp a hold of my creativity and realise my creative future depends on my strength of character to keep pushing myself, NOT breaking myself. Cutting myself up into tiny pieces every-time I produce a bad piece of work is counter productive, I take it, learn from it and do it again and again and again.
I loved the blue of the miniatures and the very personal nature of them, but they are obsolete objects in many ways and I’m not sure it’s helped me know what I want to do with my small etched portraits.
What I think does have resonance for my work is the way the viewer interacts with these portraits. It’s a close personal exchange. I like this aspect of them, particularly the one I included above.
The V&A also had a series of books in cabinets, I’m thinking about all the ways I might want to present my portraits, but I’m not certain what I would be trying to say by presenting them this way.
I’m feeling brim full of ideas and just don’t have the time, therefore the patience to see them all through.
10x8cm (approx) This needs some editing, I can soften some of the shadows on the face and sort out around her neck line. The fineness of the line is so amazing though, I’m particularly pleased with the lines of her jumper and texture of her hair. Definitely the sort of marks I’ll take into my next print.
Having done another small copper plate, I’ve decided I love working on copper and I’d like to do a big self-portrait using similar lines but on a grander scale. I printed a larger digital version of one of my s.p’s (see below) and thought it was quite a shocking vision of myself, intimidating almost and a little abject even (whoop!!). I could work up a large copper plate, but it’ll cost a lot so I’m going to wait for feedback from Leo before I commit to this idea. On Monday I’ll spend some time drawing a larger self-portrait and see what I think.
I also know that these portraits of my girls aren’t of the abject and I’m not sure whether they belong with what I’m doing right now or not. The one below of Cléa has a slight sense of melancholy that I like when I paint/draw children though. Everyone’s keen to draw children, but I think they often project some sort of adult ideal of childhood onto the portrait. I’m all for the darker side of things and expressing the confusion of growing up. THAT is relevant, how “abject” could you make a portrait of a child. Jenny Saville pulls no punches in this regard.
I know this has already been put on my blog but it’s a part of the same series so belongs next to the one of Elliott. But I can see how much more I’ve pushed what I can achieve in the one above, I didn’t realise I could make such fine marks when I did this portrait of Cléa (both on copper).Silvia holding up my digital print. My instinct tells me to do this.
My confusion is how big do I go and is it still ok to be focused purely on the face (my instinct is yes it is). I pinned my large S.p in the studio and Liorah felt it was maybe too big and the small intimacy of the ones I’ve been doing were more interesting. I agree with this, but I also like the uncomfortably feeling of the larger one. She suggested doing a life sized version and them proceeded to describe how I could do the entire body, Silvia had already asked me why just the head all the time portraits can be more than than. This is all helpful and at the same time extremely unhelpful! Could I design a piece so it really feels like a mirror reflection if I make it life sized?
I know what a portrait is, I’m consciously working with just the face, it’s so intense, inescapable, does that make it ok? I can’t do all things, I have to select what to focus on and perhaps Silvia could do with that advice herself right now. Maybe I’m in the better place, not spreading my ideas and techniques all over the place. Or is she on the pulse and I’m getting it wrong. It can be very confusing and I need to thrash it out it out for myself. Hopefully with my growing confidence I won’t find other people’s input so overwhelming.
I’m worried I’m boxing myself in with just s.p’s and focusing fully on the head, yet I’m really progressing with my line and general vision so is it worth taking that risk. I’m thinking beyond the MA though and need some advice on this….And not from other students.
Other things that are going round my head is working into my plates with paint, charcoal etc, I want to try engraving and using more materials in the style of Köllwitz. She’s definitely my new idol. Forget Freud thank you very much. I’m SO over male artists.
List of stuff to do
Large copper self-portrait plate to push more into the abject and capture a deeper emotional reality through the portrait as a genre.
Work into prints with charcoal and watercolour
Make a plate using soft ground layers where I print paper as background texture-inspired by Köllwitz’s and reminds me of work I was doing last term but abandoned. Maybe go back to that print and keep working at it.
‘Mirror’ life sized portrait?
Layering portraits, still not really tried this. I could plan it and make an image that works better than my poor attempt. The portraits need to layer but stay visible in areas and merge in others.
Portraits of children that are more honest and tap into universal feelings whether young or old
This is a little postscript. I printed two portraits directly on top of one another. The first plate I mixed the ink with 50% plate oil, but think I’d need to do that with the second portrait too. It’s quite strange and ugly.
The Picasso exhibition was truly mind-blowing. I wasn’t that enthusiastic about going because it’s a bit of a cliche to rant about the genius of Picasso (although I find his life fascinating and have read a biography that really expressed the sense of urgency and excitement around Picasso and his creative passion and commitment), but there is a reason for this. His etchings, rose period paintings, blue period paintings and so many of his prints were astonishing. They were passionate, imaginative, liberated, unconstrained and so concentrated.
These two prints two of my favourites that I spent a long time looking at. They almost look like different etchings, the effect of a la poupee is incredible and I can now see the point in that way of inking up! I find this etching so emotive. There’s so much going on in it, you could get lost in the narrative, the lines and the beauty of it for days. It’s encouraged me to not get complacent, to continue to liberate my work from inside of myself, be freer, take more risks and enjoy the free fall.
This Weeping Woman can’t be captured digitally very easily, the impact is staggering. I wouldn’t have thought I would be effected by such a strange portrait, but the expression of pain on her face went straight through me. This might have been because it was just about life sized, it was probably quite a lot bigger than that, but it felt life sized and as though she was therefore directly communicating her pain with the viewer. This is something to reflect back on when I’m deciding on scale and what impact I want my portraits to have.
These are gouache paintings and again you need to see them in the flesh to understand their beauty and skill. The flatness of the paint really attracts me and is what attracts me to lino/relief print generally, perhaps this could be incorporated into my portraits. I would like to, I’m just terrible at mixing media, it’s something I have got to try and get better at because I love prints that incorporate different printmaking techniques. Delicacy versus bold colour.
It’s the light and dark, black line and painterliness that is so striking in these two. Picasso has no fear of combining all sorts of mediums.
These are a few of his etchings that he produced for a sculpture. I love these abstracting portraits. I do want to take my portraits into more abstraction and freedom of expression, but I need to keep drawing away to get the confidence in my skill.
Finally, Picasso’s drypoint reminded me of the wonders of this slightly under rated printing technique.
There was more, and more and more that I could include, but I will stick to these as they were the standout pieces for me. It’s so sad the RA have had to close due to Covid-19, this exhibition has been the most magical thing I have seen in a long long time and it makes me want to weep like Picasso’s etched woman to think that so many people aren’t going to get inspired by a wonderfully curated exhibition.
I listened to an episode of The Great Women Artists podcast this morning. I’m ashamed to have not known who Celia Paul was until today. Listening to her was like having someone much more accomplished and poised discuss my inner tangle of thoughts on self-portraiture and the still untapped potential of them. It’s really given me heart and reminded me I’m exactly where I need to be, I might want to produce lots of excellent work NOW, but there’s no rush and rushing won’t produce anything of value either. I’ve bought Celia Paul’s autobiography about her life as an artist (not only muse of Freud) and the portraits of her family. The way she described herself as a private kind of artist that didn’t like painting strangers resonated with me because I feel very similarly, although I do take commissions from strangers, I’m not that extroverted and struggle with it constantly. Not that I want to hide away in my studio and not be around people and artists, but I do shy away from being that brazen (typically male) confident portrait artist. It makes me feel reassured that all ways of being an artist are valid.
I feel very grown up having these wise thoughts, I also think it’s sign of my creative confidence growing and not feeling like I constantly need to prove my worth to goodness knows who. I am improving and deepening my knowledge of my portraits and other artists portraits and I’m so happy to be wallowing and splashing around in all of this.
The overall feeling I want to bottle from today is that I’m on track, I’m producing enough work that’s pushing in the right direction to feel comfortable. I’ve been putting myself under a lot of pressure to do more, work through more ideas using the portraits. I don’t want to complete all avenues just yet, this is a lifetimes worth of work and I need to stop rushing.
The small portraits are still developing, I’m going to be more accepting of that because the large self-portraits are really feeling good at the moment. Also the work I want to do on women artists is a huge project and I’ve decided to leave it until I graduate and not try to squeeze it into what I’m doing. I think I could start portraying myself in the way I have in mind for other women artists and see what comes of it. Im just dipping my toe into more critical feminist ideas around the female artists’ experience within an art history context.
Meanwhile I’ll keep thinking of the small portraits of my girls in more abject ways, I’m loosening up my drawing as I become more proficient at etching.
With aquatint, not actually sure I want it like this.Aquatint taken back with some brassoSome more aquatint scraped back around the hair and a subtle bit of drypoint added around the eye and hair
I’ve been thinking a lot about what Leo said at the end of Unit 1, which is that I have a strong research paper and that will inform and deepen my practice. Now I’ve got over the initial desire to forget all about my paper I’m starting to really want to make sure the portraits are fulfilling my proposal.
Light and dark, the oppositional part of my work is still there, but I have been reading Pollock and Parker this week and it’s fired me up again! I am an artists, I am a woman, I want to think of Lynda Neads call to arms and focus on how I can make these portraits work more for me. I want them to state that women as artists have as much credibility as male artists, I want to portray them as strong, physical, neither feminine nor masculine, but something other, or both. Something powerful and with a creative voice that can be louder than the deep sexism ingrained in galleries.
Like the ideas around performance and ‘body art’, I take my portraits off the wall, or curate them to be in conversation with one another. Women artists at work. Perhaps one big piece? Or lots of strong dynamic faces framed as traditional portraits but turned to one another’s frames, speaking over and around the framework of the gallery wall. I really like this idea, but goodness knows what anyone else will think and these need thinking about because I haven’t got lots of time. I actually imagine these as my big etchings, but I’m thinking this could be my books, but am I shrinking this subject by making it small. Although I could make them heavy biblical type tomes!
I’ve also been returning to Frances Borzello’s book ‘See Ourselves; Women’s Self-Portraits’. The history of women’s self-portraits is fascinating and incredible that it’s only now that we have a book dedicated to the subject. It’s really inspired me to feel confident in my contribution to a great history women’s self-portraits. They have significance and importance in contemporary art because we are seeing ourselves differently as women and can express this in a way we couldn’t have even fifty years ago. My work isn’t off the scale like Jenny Saville’s, or a new type of (autobiographic) abject self-portrait, like Emin’s bed, but they speak from a quieter place that has just as strong a voice as Emin’s and Saville’s!
Still thinking about my small images, how and who.
These little images have value, but they’re more about the dual feelings of vulnerability and strength, battling the beauty myth. While the big etchings are more about the abjection of these stereotypes and reframing the female in art and women as artists.
This week has been really productive, I’ve had a slow few weeks collating what I need, drawing and prepping for this bigger etching. Yesterday I pulled the first print. It’s definitely an accumulation of what I’ve been doing with my self-portraits. It’s exciting, I plan to try all the things I’ve done on a smaller scale in this print too. I need to buy some black Somerset and Newsprint Somerset paper. The Newsprint might work well as handmade books, while the black will have the white chine-collé treatment. I’ve dropped an aquatint on it and will see what that looks like next week. I get to scrape it back if it doesn’t work.
42x49cm
The process has been really successful and after all that hand wringing about creative integrity I’ve felt perfectly ok with enlarging my drawing to fit it to the plate. I drew out the portrait at about life size, then scanned it and asked Lars to enlarge it to my plate and I drew a simple tracing onto the plate. From there I used a mirror, the original drawing and the photo I took the image from to scratch my selfie. This three way drawing experience was brilliant and I’ll definitely be repeating this practice. I got my portrait structure in place with the tracing then could be more free and creative within those basic lines that I’d previously resolved. These bigger portraits are not the place for improvisation, that’s where the miniature portraits will come into their own.
I’m on my way with these bigger self-portraits and I can just keep going and see where it takes me.
I have discussed with Dan my concern about plonking a load of portraits together and calling my MA finished. I can recognise that I’ve come a long way with the portraits, but I know I’m not there yet and it’s been a huge underlying anxiety for several weeks. The group crit really brought it home, seeing them lined up on the wall like that. I think my work and my skills have come on massively in the last twelve months and I’m trying not to be too self-critical (and failing), but I have my eyes wide open and can see I’ve not clinched the deal yet.
Based on things Jo and Pippa have said to me I’ve felt I need a hook to hang all this off, or something else to pull it together, but something is definitely alluding me. I tried printing on black, I’ve tried large charcoals, I’ve got the clay out and now I’ve got the carborundum out. By some miracle the carborundum has kicked off a series of thoughts based on my conversation with Dan.
I have visions of small mask like faces coming out of the dark. I want to make more abstracted faces though (I just HAVE to see if I can make the detailed type first!), it’s hard trying to be accurate at that scale, I’ve not done anything like this for year. I love clay modelling!
Dan’s expressed what I was struggling with; that in fact I already have everything I need in my work, but I want to really emphasise the juxtaposition between the vulnerability and confrontation that lies in my work. I need to emphasise this conflict in the way I am composing and presenting my portraits, whether it’s a single portrait, or multiple ones. He went on to stick a portrait on the wall and mask an area around it in order to think about that space and what is required. The space around my work is as important as the piece itself and needs as much thought as the portrait. Which is a little intimidating, BUT it’s key and its taken me back to Kiasma in Helsinki and the musical performance that blew me away. What was incredible about that was the way I walked into a dark room, felt completely immersed in the darkness of the experience, yet then felt complete joy. The joy was rapidly followed by an out pouring of emotion, which was completely unexpected. I need to remember all of this when I’m thinking about my presentation. It’s more than presentation, it’s a critical aspect of the work as a whole and it’s so important that I get this right, but it’s a new and challenging concept for me.
The darkness, the visible and invisible aspect of identities is the part I want to explore. The darkness is key, it acts as a stage, somewhat quietens the mind, there’s less “noise” where there’s darkness. Within darkness there’s a sense of unknown and potential threat too, the edges cannot be seen only felt, the unexpected becomes more of a presence. Darkness can cause anxiety, but also it can hold you.
I think beauty and femininity is still there too, it sits within the conversation around portraiture of women, but this can all be subsumed by the anxiety and confrontation of the work as a whole. It all falls under the banner of the politics of identity.
Jo suggested I print on the black, which I did, she then suggested chine collé when I said I wasn’t pleased with the silver print. I’ve done it, it looks spooky (above) in a satisfying way, but my feeling was ‘so what’, what next. I’m starting to get it though, since my conversation with Dan, this could all be relevant within a wider compositional context. I’m going to break up the tissue paper and use a bigger plate and make the portrait disappear between the torn pieces of tissue. I’m also playing with creating dark molten landscapes with carborundum which I may paint over in black. I’ll experiment with hanging/lying the small clay masks within it, or cut out some smaller prints and bury them in it. potentially I’ll do a larger version of the black surface to use with bigger prints (still to be produced) in a similar way. I want my portraits to be an immersive experience!
Perhaps I’ll have small hidden portraits within my huge background, etchings and clay, then have my large portraits somewhere in amongst this. The viewer will have to step forward and really approach this uncomfortable surface to see what lies within it. This surface needs to be visceral, like blackened insides. Oh how abject I hear you cry…
The group crit was 10 minutes of the group discussing the work and 5 minutes for feedback. This was interesting because you end up trying to formulate and absorb the information to respond accordingly. I was more prepared to tell everyone what all these portraits meant and it definitely threw me. Jo also gets right to the nub and takes no prisoners!
General feedback was the digitally enlarged etching had a sculptural, marble-esque almost Rodin feel to it. Is this good or bad?
Composition came up, the cropped faces having a different impact, maybe they’re more ambiguous. Composition is something I really need to start focusing on.
Anna felt the large charcoal portrait spoke to the viewer differently from the more obviously pained etchings, it was a more overtly challenging gaze, but then she added that perhaps all of them are challenging the gaze and that there’s a strength even in the tortured expressions of the other etchings.
larger than life! Charcoal life drawing
Here I feel the point is getting home. It’s about the gaze, the challenge of looking and being looked at by a female face which hasn’t been airbrushed in order to confirm to western beauty ideals. I’m trying to present a more honest reflection of femininity.
Eliz felt they spoke of a a state of mind, especially seen en masse, but when I suggested I wanted to present a lot of self portraits/“selfies” (there’s an irony there!) everyone then asked why and what for. Argh!
The same question of why when I said I wanted to do some large portraits… because they’re over whelming, the question of representation of the feminine becomes larger and more dominating. The abject seeps into the conversation.
But am I confusing this very personal reflection on myself, my light and dark, my pleasure and pain with also wider issues of femininity. Can this be done through my self-portrait?
Do I emphasis the language of the “selfie”, but then it becomes about Instagram, but that’s still my area of exploration. The pressure to be beautiful, in the most restrictive sense, is even greater for this social media generation. Girls want to emulate and homogenise and present selfies that are so far away from their real beauty. I see Instagram photos of my daughters friends and they’re only 12 but I barely recognise them. I’m glad to see Cléa doesn’t do the selfie thing…yet. I worry that these girls really feel they aught to be these passive, big eyed, milkie-skinned zombies. these pictures are put on social media for peer approval, but what is this approval? One great Darwinism competition? It makes me want to post the shittest, most unflattering picture of myself!
Georgina liked the pencil and charcoal drawing that she felt was becoming an almost distorted image of myself and disappearing into the darkness (which is where I want to take these portraits) , more abject!
Jo hit a nerve as well, asking me to consider that this a room full of white m/c women, what would a young black man like Michael (who wasn’t there) think when he looked at these. What would someone from a different ethnic or social background think. I felt almost guilty that I hadn’t taken…what…ALL people into consideration when I made these portraits. They’re self-portraits, it might be hard to appeal to a young male artist or an elderly male banker or a street cleaner, or ….the list is endless. I’m not here to please everyone, I’m expressing myself and hoping along the way there will be people who do relate to my portraits. I wish challenged Jo on this, but I’m easily intimidated!
I’m challenging portraiture, I’m challenging the male AND female gaze, I’m challenging myself to make art that speaks. But obviously not to everyone. I’m actually not that interested in what the male species thinks about my portraits, they’ve had their turn. I care more about speaking to other women. I’d like to think the colour of my skin isn’t relevant, but I accept it inevitably is. Having said all this, I do care about men and male artists but I’m not trying to please them, or turn their heads, I’m trying to equal the number of female artists to male who have a strong unapologetic voice and not be scared to speak up.
In conclusion…
I’ve realised I need to really think about my composition and presentation of the portraits, I want to go large for reasons I’ve discussed (think Jenny Saville) and I want to go small too. It’s intimate and powerful in a different way. However, I see that I have the “how” I make my portraits(the light/dark, the abject, the aesthetic of disgust), I also have the “why” (challenging a feminine portrait aesthetic, honest gaze type thing) but I don’t have the answer to the “so what” question Jo keeps launching at me!
Marigold Plunkett 