Portrait Behind the Desk
"Performative Portraits"
2005
See also:
1. A copy of the letter sent to participants
2. List of participants and their portrait selections
3. Vow of Chastity, from Dogme 95
4. Vows for Painting, Dogma 05 by Mary Beth Edelson
Overview
I began to notice in films, TV interviews and photographs as well as in real life how often men were protrayed in the work place behind a desk with a portrait of a famous man on the wall above him and that these portraits contributed to signaling the man's authority. Portraits of women in media or real life, on the other hand, when you saw them at all, were often family members or beautiful mysterious women whose presentation was a sign of class. The absence of woman's image as a sign of authority in public space adds to the list of unquestioned cultural assumptions about women and their place in the world.
I sent a letter to 100 women asking them, "If you can imagine hanging a portrait of a woman on the wall behind your desk who would it be?" For the last two years I have painted a selection of their suggestions, some were exhibited in the Malmo retrospective "A Life Well Live."
Painting the Portraits
It is important to me that the viewer understands that these portraits are not intended to be viewed as traditional paintings, but as a performative conceptual project that employs paint and portraiture as practical tools for making cultural statements.
I am engaged in a dialog with the woman that I am painting. Both the act of painting and researching her life contribute to a sustained conversation with the subject and carry-over into building her story. I look at the life of this particular woman for what has been denied her as a result of her position in life. I also cast about for an aspect of her life that I feel I can enter. This approach enables me to locate a specificity of this individual's psyche and character, and the possibility of getting into her skin. For example, for the Golda Meir portrait, I focused on the famous observation made by the first Israeli Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, during a heated cabinet discussion, that she was "the only man in the room". This conceptual project presents painting portraits of women as a political act.
A statement that I frequently make about my art making is that I use whatever medium is the most suitable for the project at hand, and this project is no different in that regard. Painting is selected only because it is the most practical medium for producing portraiture.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
