Landscape; or, The Modern Epimetheus for
Conceptualizing the Body: Gaze, Masquerade
and Spectacle
Amelie A. Wallace Gallery, SUNY College at
Old Westbury, Old Westbury, NY 2011
site-specific painting, install, performance
Foresight as Prometheus:
By placing myself behind a sheet of Plexiglas I hope
to explore meanings and conceptions of performance
versus painting. Paint will be moved across the
transparent canvas with gestural movements, applied
by the body. I plan to begin with the clear surface
covered in white, "blank." Little by little more
paint and color will be added, removed, dripped,
pressed or flung across, eaten... Compositions will
change during the three hours I project to create and
will be dictated as I view it from my reversed per-
spective.
Hinterglasmalerei:
…German for reverse glass painting, is a process and
technique that reverses the gaze of the artist from
that of the viewer. Thus, perhaps the viewer has the
advantage vantage possessing both the perspective of
process and artistic intent simultaneously. Figure
and landscape combine within an abstract communica-
tion of the artist's mind only visible by the viewer.
Where then is the fixed view point; the intent or ex-
pression; is the composition void or complete with
harmony; is it possible for multiple pieces to exist
simultaneously as paint seems to pull itself across
the canvas as a through-the-looking-glass strip tease?
Am I as figure within the frame painter or performer
or the painting itself? Willem de Kooning said "the
landscape is in the Woman and there is Woman in the l
andscape." At moments my own figure may be more app-
arent and "incorporated" into the canvas. I'm inter-
ested in observing (or perhaps, rather, viewers ob-
serving) whether lines blur between definitions of
performance, painting as object, landscape, portrait,
or abstraction.
Hindsight as Epimetheus:
Prometheus in Greek mythology is credited with provid-
ing mortals with the knowledge of fire defiant to the
wishes of the gods. Prometheus thus passed along his
own "foresight" to mortals, imperative for advancement
in thought and engineering. As well, Frankenstein
granted life to his monster and like Prometheus was
tortured since-forth for his actions. Epimetheus,
however (representing "afterthought"), provides a
balance by observing current conditions without
thought. Epimetheus shares the knowledge of depend-
ency upon one another. This was Frankenstein's down-
fall and so his creation's downfall as well; he pro-
vided no acceptance, relationship or nurturing to his
creation even after its incessant howling cries for
attention.
" 'You are my creator, but I am your master: obey!' "
-from Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary
Wollstonecraft Shelley
Research:
Yves Klein's Anthropometries
Jackson Pollock working on a glass surface, 1950
Marilyn Mintor's "Green and Pink Caviar"
Nang Talung
Barbarella
Regina Reim
-Aaron Sheppard
original project statement
2011 |
