Research
Hans Ulrich Obrist: 'Ways of Curating'.
I recently read Hans Ulrich Obrist's book 'ways of curating'. I was very interested in Obrist's 'kitchen show'. 'Kitchen Show' was Obrist's first exhibition. Obrist hosted a show from his own kitchen, he spoke about how the kitchen was empty as he always ate out, but he turned it into a utilised kitchen stocked with oversized commercially packaged food. The whole installation had an Alice and Wonderland feel. After reading about Obrist's kitchen show I began thinking about using my own home as a domestic space to install my artwork. I thought about different places I could hang or place paintings, for example in the bathroom cupboard, on the microwave, in the bathtub etc.
Paula Rego
Paula Rego is a Portuguese visual artist, working mainly in pastels and oils, and is known for her paintings depicting 'stories'. Her work is inspired by her own experiences and she makes up stories about the people she knows, using this to inform her paintings. As a child, she would sit around the kitchen table, whilst the maids told tales - you can see this inspired her piece 'the maids'. Paula depicts scenes from her domestic life as well as basing her work on fairytales and animals – much of this is inspired from her childhood. I admire her ability to create a narrative in her paintings. Her figurative paintings are quite raw, they all have a childlike feel to them, whilst being quite dark and eerie in a way. Her paintings make me feel as though I am peeking into someone's life, in these two paintings; 'the family' and 'the maids' for example, someone is looking directly at me, making me feel like I have been caught spying. Paula Rego's narrative paintings are a major influence in my project on domestic art and symbolism.
This painting is quite eerie, at first glance, it appears the maids are helping, however when I looked closer it is quite dark and looks as though they are perhaps trying to hurt the people in the painting. I listened to a podcast in which Paula spoke about how she intends the maids to look murderous and that they murder the mistress.
Paula Rego by John McEwen 2nd Edition
I recently read this excellent book on the artist Paula Rego's life and artwork. I found it extremely interesting and helpful in my artistic practice. I have been a fan of Paula's work for many years and this book allowed me to read her reasons and ideas behind her paintings and how they are strongly influenced by her childhood and her fathers beliefs.
Paula talks about religion quite a lot in the book and how she has battled with it quite a lot throughout her like. She talks about it being scary and the devil in her nightmares. Terror has major influence in Paula’s work. She mentions ‘in my art I try to give fear a face’.
For her secondary education her father hired a tutor to giver her lessons. Paula loathed her and spoke about her violence, ‘she was rough and cruel and used to hit me’. A lot of Paula’s work have an essence of violence which could be linked to this childhood trauma.
Paula’s early work involved drawing an image on paper and then cutting it up to make her collages, however in her series of the ‘red monkey’ in 1995-99, she rediscovered the thrill of direct working and abandoned collage altogether. She then started to explore figurative art again.
I really like her series of ‘the girl and dog’ in 1986. She created a series of brightly coloured works where the dog is either petted, dressed up, spoon fed and looked after. I find this series quite relatable to my work as I create domestic paintings of myself in my home in which my dog is featured quite a lot. ‘The girl and the dog’ series was exhibited at the Edward Totah gallery in London and was Paula’s first commercial success in England.
Paula then went on to create ‘The Maids’. The maids represent a new chapter in Paula’s art and it is my favourite chapter of hers.
The Girl and the Dog
The Cadet and His Sister
'The Cadet and His Sister' is quite an interesting painting of Paula's. Paula offers two interpretations of this painting at different dates. In the first she says how she wanted the avenue disappearing in the distance to look like a theatrical backdrop and for the young man to appear slightly younger than his sister (possibly thirteen). She also talks about the sex symbols - the bag and gloves, she wanted the bag to look dangerous, all lined in red like it could snap shut. She wanted the painting to be a lesson, a lesson about accepting fate in a nice sort of way. she talks about how the picture isn't unhappy at all.
In her second conversation about the painting in 1990, she talks about it being about incest. The brother and sister have just made love and she is dressing him up. The cock is his masculinity and the bag is her femininity, the bag snaps shut and could castrate him. She says the background is like a false backdrop, but if it is real it is a dead-end and that it represents how incest leads nowhere. His future is destroyed. She will control him forever.
The Cadet and His Sister
Salvador Dali by Conroy Maddox
I really enjoyed this book on Salvador Dali, as even though I was familiar with his work, I didn't know much about the artist himself and the reasons behind his surrealist paintings. The words 'neurotic', 'egocentric', and 'mad' are often used to describe Dali. Dali is so closely identified with surrealism in the public min, people see surrealism as Salvador Dali. One thing I love about Dali's work is the personal symbolism he uses in all of his work, for example the fried eggs, and ants. This is one thing I am trying to achieve in my paintings, by packing in lots of personal symbolism you can really tell a story and give the painting a narrative.
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I found Dali's upbringing and childhood quite interesting. Dali was said to be abnormally imaginative from early childhood and was always selfishly preoccupied in his own pleasures, parading his perverted violence. Dali talked about a pre-birth vision he had of a pair of eggs sizzling but without a pan. He talks about how he can produce the image at will by putting pressure on his eyes. The symbolic use of eggs is used quite often in his paintings, for example in 'fried egg on the plate without the plate' or 'Ordinary French loaf with two fried eggs riding without a plate'.. Dali's parents and teachers spoke about him as a young student and said he was a very poor pupil. He desired to be the exact opposite of everyone else and would dream up anti-social acts to astonish students, most of which were acts of aggression. An example this includes when he kicked his three year old sister in her head, he spoke about the delirious joy this brought him. Another aggressive act he performed is when he pushed a young boy over a bridge onto rocks some 15 feet below. Dali recalls spending the afternoon after this act eating cherries in a rocking chair while he watched basins of blood being brought out of the young boy's room. The symbolism of the rocking chair and cherries is seen in some of his works, for example 'Six Apparitions of Lenin on a Piano.'
Another piece of symbolism I see often in Dali's paintings are a pile of ants. I have always wondered the meaning behind this, until I came across a story from Dali's childhood in this book. Dali had his own studio in the washing house of his parents house and he would call it his hiding place. One day he found a bat and took it to his studio to look at it, the next day it lay dead in a pile of ants, and Dali decided to take a bite out of the writhing mass of ants.
Dali's painting ' sleep' is another favourite of mine, his reason behind this painting is he apparently saw sleep as a monster supported by crutches.
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After reading this book I have learnt the meaning and inspiration behind most of Dali's paintings are quite disturbing and often lead back to his early childhood.
'Ordinary french loaf with two fried eggs riding without a plate'
'Fried egg on the plate without the plate'
'Sleep'
'Six apparitions of Lenin on a piano'
Alice Herbst
I am a huge fan of Alice Herbst's paintings. She creates these beautifully coloured large scale oil paintings. They are quite fragmented in ways, revealing different images and shapes underneath the surface. Alice is inspired by fashion and often uses herself as her muse, dressing up in wigs and experimenting with different outfits and makeup styles. Alice inspired my piece 'Getting Ready', in which I also used myself as the muse, creating different versions of myself in the same painting. I would love to explore oil paints further and practice with backgrounds as I woul love to achieve this level of detail in my paintings.
John Brosio
Nicholas Maes
I am a big fan of Nicholas Maes' genre scenes. His paintings of people in their homes going about everyday life are so captivating. I love the amount of detail that goes into each paintings and they all seem to tell a story. A particular favourite of mine is 'The Eavesdropper'. This painting directly brings the audience into the scenario as the Lady is looking right at you with her fingers to her lips.
Nicholas Maes - 'The Eavesdropper' 1657
Genre Painting
Genre Painting developed in Holland in the seventeenth century. It depicted aspects of everyday life involving ordinary people partaking common activities, such as cooking and cleaning. In early genre painting the most typical subjects were those of peasant life or drinking in taverns.
Rachel Whiteread
I love this domestic sculpture by Rachel Whiteread. I came across Rachels work whilst viewing the exhibition 'Woman House' online. The sculpture shows a chess set making a game out of traditional gender roles. On the wifes side the king is the cooker and her pawns are a variety of household items including pots and pans and cleaning utensils. On the husbands side however his king is the refrigerator and his pawns are a variety of comfy arm chairs. It is quite a comical sculpture in a way, however it also portrays a message of gender rolls.
Rachel Whiteread - 'Modern Chess Set' 2005