Slippages between the picture plane and the painting surface. An analysis, through my paintings, of specular highlights, proximal spaces and the Lacanian gaze

The aim of this practice-based research project is to examine how specular highlights and proximal spaces, when perceived through the Lacanian gaze, might confound our perception of Cartesian perspectivalism in representational painting. I will analyse and question such a combination of specific visual characteristics identified within three of my paintings and related theories of looking. Specifically, these include Hal Foster’s (1996: 138) reading of the ways in which the Lacanian ‘gaze’ disrupts Cartesian perspectivalism, Norman Bryson’s (1990: 71, 79) writing on the reversal of the ‘Albertian gaze’ and Arthur Faisman and Michael S. Langer’s (2013: 1) definition of ‘specular highlights’. By analysing and mapping theoretical concerns that come from close readings of three of my paintings I will investigate whether or not our perception of Cartesian perspectivalism can be somewhat confounded by these specific visual characteristics. I will also discuss how overloading the viewer with an excessive use of specular highlights could disrupt any underlying narratives within the paintings. This will be done by subsequently re-examining these theoretical concerns back through my painting practice, forming what Dean and Smith (2009: 19) have termed an ‘Iterative Cyclic Web’. My hypothesis is that these three paintings may be nexus for a particular oscillation between different ways of looking contained within the paintings I will discuss: looking through the surface, looking across the surface and a form of being looked at from inside the surface. This thesis will be underpinned by two interconnected elements. Firstly, there will be an exhibition of selected paintings I have made, together with painting experiments and supporting material. Secondly, chapters in this text will outline the theoretical analysis of my painting practice and the subsequent studio-based analysis of questions derived from the theoretical analysis. This thesis as a whole will closely follow a practice-based research methodology drawn from Katie MacLeod’s (2000: online) writing on ‘revealing a practice’. I will move back and forth between practice and writing as a method for analysing and developing a multifaceted response to my research question.

Author dc:creator

• Moloney, Donal

• History of Art
• Painting

Statement dc:rights

• cc_by_nc_nd

Language dc:language

en

Identifier

Moloney, Donal <https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/view/creators/Moloney=3ADonal=3A=3A.html> (2015) Slippages between the picture plane and the painting surface. An analysis, through my paintings, of specular highlights, proximal spaces and the Lacanian gaze. PhD thesis, University of the Arts London.

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk:12069