The self-contained object and the ground as a process within a continuum: a study of the marked and unmarked space.
‘Standing at this border where land and water meet, watching the seemingly endless recurrence of the waves (though this eternity is in fact illusion: the Earth will one day vanish, everything will one day vanish), the fact that our lives are no more than brief instants is felt with unequivocal clarity.’ (Kang, 2017, p.59)
‘Void or Emptiness can generally be defined as equivalent to absence. Void is, in principle, strictly the absence of sound, for example, is silence, and absence of quantity or equivalent to the number zero.’ (Ribas, 2008, p.24)
This paper will look at the meaning of the marked and unmarked space and its relationship to ‘the void’ in my own artwork. To do so, Rothko’s last manuscript The Artist Reality (2004) and Malevich’s The Nonobjective World (1959) will be paramount to build a brief reflection to the complexity of Drawing's plasticity. I realized, after my last visit to HM Prison Pentonville, that Portraiture has an important role which defines my practice. Thus, I will explore what happened to me as a Portrait Artist after my research in prison. This will not only help me to clarify my own approach related to this subject, but also will build on my thinking thanks to the study of the embodied self.
To avoid dangerous assumptions, such as what the thoughts of the prisoners were, I will emphasize the investigation on the academic description of my own feelings and how the experience of being in that environment affected me. The main findings of this study intend to address the subject, at first, from the generalization of preconceived psychic dominant factors. Therefore, I created a direct connection between my experience at Pentonville and ‘the void’. I will talk about my emotional engagement with questions for the void and the figure. In this essay, this is understood as ‘whiteness’. ‘Whiteness’ is not the word as such. It is a metaphor related to the figure and the ground - the marked and the unmarked space.
This study is structured as follows. In my theoretical referents, we can find Mark Rothko and his book The Artist’s reality (2004). As I mentioned before, it will help to explain my own philosophies and the many layers of meaning that are still hidden within my artwork. The non-objective world (1959) by Kasimir Malevich was included because it is a deep analysis of Art systems.
The White book (2017) by Han Kang was selected due to the transformative experience after writing on the colour white. Then, I will also establish definitions related to the historical and psychological meaning of emptiness.
It is important to clarify that the historical approach to the concept of void will contextualize my personal explorations. Thus, The Utility of Emptiness (2008) by The Museum of Decorative was chosen for the study of the various interpretations of the void. Visual Thinking by Rudolf Arnheim will explain the relationship between the marked and the unmarked ground. Defining what is that compositional space, untouched ground, whiteness (which is important as the portrait itself) is one of the main ideas of this research. I thought that it represented the way I recall my models, but now I know that there are several elucidations and here I explain them.
Finally, I will explore the work of two contemporary artists whose practice is related to emptiness and/or the self, who see this as a springboard for the creation of a project. The first one is the professional photographer Jason Shenai. He was selected because I found during my investigation similar researches, which theorized on the subject of ‘being in prison’ such as Inside Eye. It was an art project created by a group of photographers in Wandsworth prison that started in 1992. The second one is Francesca Woodman and her reflections on the self and space, especially on her latest ‘ghostly’ photographs. After this, I will analyze a series of my own work that I have chosen for this paper.
Rothko’s philosophy of Art stated in The Artist Reality (2004) has a very interesting chapter devoted to Space. The artist states that it has a philosophical basis and it is related to the sensibility of the artists. He also explains that a way to understand artists’ statements is to comprehend the space to which the artwork has been drawn. As a result, we could assimilate and digest the artist attitude toward reality. (Rothko, 2004).
Not only Rothko argues ways to comprehend artists but also Malevich was interested in individual’s visual effects, in order to explore the changes in Art. ‘The conscious and subconscious minds react to everything constituting the environment of the artist and in what relation the “clear” and the “unclear” (the conscious and the subconscious minds), stand to each other.’ (Malevich, 1959 p. 11). For him, it is also a way to understand the aesthetic phenomenon of the artists and by this, he means to understand what is behind the artwork and the artist.
Rothko affirms the understanding of space as the secret meaning behind the picture. ‘It constitutes a statement of faith, a priori unity, to which all of the plastic elements are in a state of subservience.’ (Rothko, 2005, p. 59). The artist also explains that our notions of time and space are bound in a formula called ‘time-space’. This is understood, in popular culture, as ‘The Fourth Dimension’ and he describes it as an abstraction of our senses which needs an intellectual process for bounding those terminologies. Furthermore, plasticity in a work of Art must produce a sense of movement, a process that achieves forms to progress (a physically tangible sensation). (Rothko, 2004)
For Rothko, Plasticity is a virtue. He understands a difference between the figure and the form in this manuscript. One rules over the other and determines how to perceive an artwork. It is true that he wrote his only book before he became the Rothko we all know and probably his way of conceiving what Space means changed during his lifetime. Nevertheless, it is interesting to evaluate his perception. The unmarked space is equal to an incomplete notion of reality/plasticity because it is not convincing and it does not produce a ‘feeling of existence’. (Rothko, 2004)
On the other hand, for Malevich, we must recognize three categories in plasticity. The first one is related to invention. This means the creation of the new. The second one outlines combination. This is related to the transformation of the existing and the last one inquiries into reproduction. This comprehends the imitation of existing. (Malevich, 1959). Malevich studies helped me to categorize my own work as that of combination. This is also a progressive activity that explores the distinct. In my case, the understanding of the marked and unmarked space, whiteness. While I was studying Rothko’s The Artist Reality I noticed that he has preconceived ideas of what Art is and how an artist should interpret them. It was his description of the importance of Space that made me realize that it was a subject that I took into consideration, but I never analyzed it profoundly.
Fate and circumstances have led me to investigate about this subject. I was influenced by Kang’s book, The White Book (2017). It is a developmental experience, a reflection of many thoughts related to the ‘existential vacuum’. Moreover, it is a magnificent metaphor for the colour white that I understood as ‘the void’. ‘I needed to write this book, and that the process of writing it would be transformative, would itself transform, into something like white ointment applied to a swelling, like gauze laid over a wound. Something I needed.’ (Kang, 2017, p. 6).
I reimagined my artwork because I was changing and I understood what was making me criticize the things that I was doing. Later, I saw a progression, an evolution, a sincere visual language. As Kang dealt with her feelings through writing, I felt that I also had to examine in detail my work utilizing as many tools as I can.
On December 8, 2017, I proceeded to go to HM Pentonville Prison after Bruce Wall, Director of the London Shakespeare Workout / LSW Prison Project, accepted my petition to conduct a research inside the facilities. The Prison’s project seeks to gather artists who practice multiple disciplines in a room. Among them, we find actors, artists, musicians, and prisoners.
What started as a project that validates ways in which Drawing was used as a social tool, to prove that it can create a positive social identity in prisons, ended up in an analysis to understand the complexity of my personal visual language and what happened to me after my research.
What was my role as an Artist? I was a guide, another person in the room. The only thing that made me different from my models was the clothes that I was wearing and the drawing materials that I was carrying. I had the intention of reporting what I saw. Therefore, transmitting the absence of freedom and conceiving my models as their own prison made me understood that the decisions they previously took condemned them. The walls of those mental prisons were thicker than Pentonville’s. Nevertheless, I noticed an escape. Not one from reality, but a way in which at least for three hours they could be free again thanks to Art.
Art. On May 15, 2018, I finished my research at HM Pentonville Prison. After spending time with the inmates, I realized that they were overcoming their emptiness through Arts. This made me understand that I needed to fill up the emptiness in my own artwork. For the first time, I understood that I needed to write about the importance of whiteness in my work, but I also tried to get rid of all negatives emotions related to whiteness. I discovered that it has a utility and also a personal meaning.
I tried to find or comprehend other words to help me define the importance of this colour or the absence of it in my artwork, ‘Emptiness, nothingness, pause, silence, and interval are essential parts of any artistic creation.’ (Marchsteiner, 2008, p.12). However, it was not enough because I realized that its utility was and still is the core of my work. To understand it we must start with its history.
Historical Meaning of Emptiness - Horror vacui. In the history of Western, there is a marked tradition of denying void. In Classical Antiquity, there was a dominant opposition to it. Almost every school of Philosophy were against it, except the Atomist school which influence was marginal. Democritus, Epicurus, and Lucretius were the most important representatives of this school).
In Physics, Aristotle describes in detail his opinions and criticism of this concept. We can clearly see his aversion to void. After European Art Nouveau, the Western world accepted void. Nowadays, it is accepted in the cosmological thought. Nevertheless, in the past, the West conceived it as an aberration. We can contrast Eastern traditional thought to it. Specifically speaking, I must briefly mention Buddhism and Taoism which always opted for the opposite. One can immediately see an appreciation of emptiness, it is part of the spiritual world. (Ribas, 2008, p.24)
The concept horror vacui was used for the first time during the Middle Ages. It was refuted for physical, metaphysical, and theological reasons. These were not empirical at all, religion was the way in which life was conceived and the every day was determined by it. ‘…a Creation for which emptiness was accepted would demean God’s perfect nature: God could not consent to such treatment.’ (Ribas, 2008, p.25)
Psychological meaning of Emptiness. It had a role, it played a role, probably the most important one. It was secretly guiding me to understand Art. I just needed a mirror, a human mirror. I needed to go to Prison and understand why I decided to choose it as part of my investigation. There was a before and after in my artistic career.
Now, I am sure that it opened new possibilities for me as a researcher and as an artist because I finally surpassed my own insecurities and I try to reflect my own philosophical preoccupations. I discovered ‘the benefit of nothingness’ as stated by Marchsteiner ‘it is related to an object or a building in which the creator opts to leave virtuous volumes or empty space.’ (Ribas, 2008, p.13) and I decided to study the psychology behind it.
The psychology of perception was first studied by Edgar Rubin and then it was described for the Arts by Gustaf Britsch. This author formulated the first condition of visual thinking making a distinction between what it is intended and was it is not, being the first one the figure and the second one the ground.
It was Rudolf Arnheim who proposed the resistance of the mind when it comes to account reality with self-contained. ‘All early imagery relies on a simple distinction between figure and ground: an object, defined and more or less structured, is set off against a separate ground, which is boundless, shapeless, homogenous, secondary in importance, and often entirely ignored.’ (Arnheim, 1969, p. 284).
A figure is a self-contained object and the ground is the empty qualitatively space. (Arnheim, 1969). My interest is focused on how a self-contained object can be part of the space that we normally recognized as a secondary element. This way, the ground can be also a protagonist and it is important as the figure itself. Both of them are one and sometimes they play the role that they are not supposed to play. The figure can be the ground and the ground can be the figure.
This made me understand that the psychological meaning of emptiness in my work conceives figure and ground as a process with a continuum. Figures are not merely detached entities in a desolate ground. There are certain circumstances, as Arnheim describes, in which the marked and unmarked space can create a continuously modulated pictorial surface and they can be understood as an unbroken sequence of shape and color as we can observe in European post-Renaissance paintings. (Arnheim, 1969)
Emptiness has also many connotations and several are related to negative feelings such as the existential vacuum. One of the most persistent problems in history, according to Viktor Frankl, is the existential vacuum. As this author mentions in his acclaimed book Das Leiden am Sinnlosen Leben (1977) there is a test called Purpose in Life Test (PIL), created by James C. Crumbaugh, in which we can confirm that it really is a modern and contemporary problem, according to the results.
We can understand this phenomenon as the lack of meaning in the life of an individual, it creates a fatiguing and tenacious feeling of deprivation of commitment to one's self and the others. It disintegrates all ideals by questioning the relationship of these, with life, by means of an invariable constant: For what? It hinders all ambitions by making them absurd. At the same time, the search for this aspiration becomes an unaffordable and incessant task.
The ordering of society and the regulations of behavior are so perfectly constructed within each individual that even when the existential vacuum arises, we do not stop losing our almost innate faculties and we are retained by our own instincts. (Frankl, 1977)
At the beginning of the course, I thought that this was the purpose of my research at Pentonville, to overcome this void. Nevertheless, I knew after my research that I didn’t want to talk about me since I was trying to use Art as a catalyst to understand other people.
Now, I would like to mention one of the projects that inspired me, but also helped me to make a distinction of the goal that I was trying to discover when I went to Pentonville. Inside Eye (1992) brought prisoners the possibility of using a photographic camera. It started as a simple workshop for prisoners to learn about photography and it ended up dealing with subjects such as power and control. Prison guards are normally afraid of these two words since prison is the institution, which censures and rehabilitates according to certain rules. (Berger, A. and Schlossman, M., 1997). The greatest fear that prisoners have is related to liberty and the lack of control. I would like to begin to describe the main characteristics of this project and then I will contrast them with HM Pentonville Prison: Drawing as a social tool (2018) project to understand the differences between the goals that I set up.
Jason Shenai, inspired by Judith Ward – a wrongly convicted woman, decided to run a workshop in Wandsworth Prison ‘to use photography as a mean of creative expression and documentation.’ (Berger, A. and Schlossman, M., 1997, p. 1). The artist was willing to teach them the technique and also aesthetics, but it was problematic for the lack of enthusiasm of the inmates. He needed help, so he decided to advertise in Image the idea of his project. Three photographers joined the artist: Derris Santini, Jaap Oepkes, and Marc Schlossman, later they were joined by Adri Berger, Jacgtar Semplay, and Mark McEvoy. (Berger, A. and Schlossman, M., 1997)
One of the surprises of the group, formed mainly by photographers, was that they had to deal first with questions of trusts, confidentiality, and how to relate to prisoners. It was evident that they did not consider Ethics as part of the investigation and it was hard for them to deal with the atmosphere that they described as ‘hostile’.
They decided to study how to best deal and relate to them and their answer was treating them as equals. They described this method as a way in which the inmates conceived them as special to them. However, I consider that Ethics are paramount when you deal with these kinds of people. This is the best way to carry out a research if you are dealing with stigmatized people. The inmates need layers of protection and different considerations when dealing with them. Protecting their identities, their interests, and creating knowledge without hurting them must be completely understood before contacting them.
The importance of Inside Eye is the exploration of the concept of Control. The author mentions that objects such as cameras granted them power and the idea for them to have any sort of control is unimaginable, letting prisoners the possibility of expressing themselves through Art gave them something that they are not supposed to have during their imprisonment. (Berger, A. and Schlossman, M., 1997). This takes us back to question what the purpose of prisons or institutions is. Is it only to feel apart from society, to experiment the feeling of being trapped in our heads - as the authors of Inside Eye questions. Or is it the feeling to experiment ‘the void’ in a controlled environment?
Those are the questions that many experts are still trying to answer, but now we know that thanks to creative workshops we are allowed to listen to what the other has to say and that was the main achievement of Inside Eye and my own project.
This photography was taken during the project. The use of black and white colours in this image, Inside Eye (?), implies that the photographer is trying to capture a dramatic moment where we can see a broken man, confined in a cell. It also suggests unhappiness. In other words, it connotes negatives meanings which try to move the viewer in a particular way. It intends for the spectator to identify himself with the character, who is unknown to us or to see him as a human being who lost his freedom.
This person looks at the horizon waiting for the day he will be free again. It’s a visual representation that acts in a particular way and it was chosen because it describes the imaginary of the photographs which were taken during this project. An analysis of Inside Eye (1992) suggests, that the attitude towards the prisoner was ambivalent. This may be due to the Photographs' lack of experience dealing with stigmatized people. In spite of these negative critics, I think that it was a successful project which can inspire other researchers.
Another of these visual representations related to the void is embodied in Francesca Woodman’s photographs. The importance of Woodman’s photographs related to this paper is the dialogue with the self because it is an exploration of the unconscious and of the artists physical/synergic representation of herself which help forged her reality.
Deborah Levy acclaims her late work by saying ‘Look at her. There she is. She is all there, but she’s always trying to make herself disappear – to become vapor, a specter, a smudge, a blur, a subject that is erased yet recognizable.’ (Levy, 2018). The author explains that she tries to make herself bigger because we are searching for her in that blurriness and also describes her as an inspiration every time she tries to write about a female character.
The viewer can easily identify the psychological charge in her photographs. One could easily feel that burden and her psyche.
Woodman committed suicide at the age of 22, consequently, her work adopted an obscure interpretation. The facts are that many months before she committed suicide, Woodman was not satisfied with herself and had become depressed. (Salter, 2012). On the contrary, her parents state that there is no connection with the interpretation of her last works – the idea that she was trying to erase herself from the world.
We can easily observe that her work was inspired by isolation, depression, and herself. The void was clearly identified and there are traces of it in her background. Nevertheless, we should understand her work as a document of her reality and also as a strong statement of what to be human means.
As we can see in House #3 (1976), her work uses reflecting surfaces such as mirrors to help to fragment the female figure. She constantly dissects herself and isolates certain parts of her body. The human figure is there but at the same time, it is not. As a result of the psychological meaning of her photographs, there are several studies in the United States which tried to discover the meaning behind her work. However, little information is related to the artist reality.
Many experts are sure that her artwork resemblances work from the surrealist and others compare it to the feminist: exploring the ways in which ‘women are forced to conceal and disguise their true selves.’ (Salter, 2012). Nevertheless, it is still subject to debate, but they agreed on two points. The first one is the dialogue with ‘the self’. The second one is the reinterpretation of the female body. (Victoria Miro, 2018)
My reality. My increasing interest in the marked and unmarked space has heightened the need for a study of how to understand and define my own Drawing practice. Analyzing the dialogue with the self in Woodman’s photograph was the first start. This took me to the study of the void and it has become an important aspect of the scope of my artwork. Therefore, it is necessary to mention certain studies such as Derrida’s because it gives us new hypothesis of how to interpret a work of Art.
There are two hypotheses related to draftsman and draftswomen. The first one has emphasized Drawing as a blind process, as opposed to Petherbridge who evaluates it as a natural ‘truth’ or as a mapped structure with prefiguring ideas. At this point, I am going to argue on Drawing as a blind process since conceiving it this way, made me understood my own work. On the contrary, Petherbridge’s interpretation of Drawing is an idealistic perception based on studies which complexities cannot be validated or proven.
The act of Drawing is related to blindness. There is also a connection between the drawer as a seer and blindness. A way to understand my reality as an artist was thanks to Derrida’s explanation on how to write without seeing. Consequently, I realized that I was Drawing without seeing. ‘A hand of the blind ventures forth alone or disconnected, in a poorly delimited space; it feels it’s a way, it gropes, it caresses as much as it scribes, trusting in the memory of signs and supplementing insight.’ (Derrida, 1993, p. 3)
I understood that my subject was Memory, but I didn’t want to write about it. I wanted to write about what made me think and reflect on it, I wanted to explain the origin of my practice and the word memory was just the feeling that the viewer perceives thanks to my own struggle. How do I describe my practice and especially this series of portraits that I selected for this research? They were chosen since they illustrate the last vision of my statement as an artist and also my investigation. There is a difference between anticipation and precipitation.
This series of drawings, which I first called memory Drawings, are now called precipitated Drawings. My hand was disconnected from seeing a model or a visual reference while I represented the figures on my panels. Hand and memory were disconnected. ‘The hand ventures forth, it precipitates, rushes ahead, certainly, but this time in place of the head, as if to precede, prepare, and protect it.’ (Derrida, 1993, p. 4). Drawing as a blind man helped me to build a body of Art which effectively sorted out my interpretation of the marked and unmarked space. I first imagined that there was no need to write about it. It was almost impossible for me to describe what was making me change my practice.
Now, I understand that it was the need to separate the intention of a preconceive work and replace it with the idea of precipitated Drawing. This is a statement of pure psychological reflection after my experience at HM Pentonville Prison. The marked and unmarked space is the unity of the division between Mind and Hand and this time the subject is a reflection on Memory. Making new solutions for the subject and the object, as Malevich said, was a way to go further than ordinary reality and the void represented a non-ordinary feeling that goes beyond the negative connotations that this word has.
In conclusion, to comprehend Art nowadays it is useful to know the importance of Aesthetics especially if we want to know what is behind our ideas. In spite of what people believe, there are differences between communication and perception and both created a fresh field for aesthetics, but this field is outside language. Aesthetically speaking, it was my intention to puzzle out my interest in Drawing related to the marked and unmarked space.
Consequently, I needed to familiarize myself with the history of emptiness and the language of visual representation to carry out my research. Studying the historical and psychological meaning of my topic increased my interest in discovering extensively studies and previous researches which made me understand the complexity of my subject, such as Arheim’s and Derrida's investigation.
The selected artists, Shenai and Woodman, were chosen because they inspired my work in a different direction, but they also made me comprehend what I didn’t want to explore in my own practice. I analyzed those projects and took into consideration the exceptional ways in which they conducted a research/artwork. However, I wanted to make a differentiation between my goals and theirs, so I needed to understand the critics which came after they finished with their investigation/work of Art. The perception of the spectator played an important role and gave these artists a marked connotation of their artworks.
The viewer’s eye normally makes a distinction between the marked and unmarked space. It is often guided by psychological principles that always assume that the figure must be drawn or guided in a certain kind of ground. Although considerable research has been devoted to the figure, rather less attention has been paid to the ground. This is always conceived as a secondary element. The study of the marked and unmarked space has become an important aspect of my practice and it is also place an important role on the research of Aesthetics. Therefore, this study was designed to prove the continuum between figure and ground.
The White Book (2017) inspired me to create a reflection of the many thoughts related to the emptiness. Furthermore, helped me to create a metaphor for the colour white that I understood as ‘the void’. I reimagined my artwork and I saw a progressive visual language. I felt that I also had to examine in detail my work utilizing as many tools as I can.
Drawing as a ‘blind man’ made me understand other possibilities in my practice because I went beyond the idea of regular representation of a figure. I also explored the difference between anticipation and precipitation. Thanks to this study I could find a perfect title for my drawings (Precipitated Drawings) and it also made me understood my new language. In consideration of these ideas, my work seeks to create a dialogue between the self-contained object and the ground to create a process within a continuum. Everything is intended, and the figure and the untouched space are one.
I realized that my work was restricted to the figure because I underestimated the ground. I was misguided and I tried to question why this controversial understanding of a ‘secondary element’ was beginning to be part of my practice and my research.
After my investigation, I discovered that an image representation is in a state of continuous motion. The image is not static at all, it is constantly changing. The visual representation of an image might be an elusive concept, but according to my studies, it is the context what gives the image new possibilities in the Art world. This represents the interaction between two elements that play key roles in the compositional space and meaning of a work of Art.
Bibliography
Arnheim, R. (1969) Visual Thinking. California: University of California Press.
Berger, A. and Schlossman, M. (1997) Inside art: A photographic document of Wandsworth Prison. London: Inside Eye.
Derrida, J. (1993) Memoirs of the blind: the self-portrait and other ruins. Translated by P; Brault and M. Naas. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Frankl, V. (2000) Das Leiden am Sinnlosen Leben. Freiburg: Nachdruck edition.
Garner, S. (2008) Writing on Drawing: Essays on Drawing Practice and Research. Bristol: Intellect Books Ltd.
Kang, H. (2017) The White Book. Cornwall: Portobello book.
Levy, D. (2018) ‘Francesca Woodman at Tate Liverpool’, Tate Etc., (June), Issue 43, pg. 58.
Malevich, K. (1959) The nonobjective world. Chicago: Paul Theobald and Company.
Marchsteiner, U. (2008) The utility of Emptiness. Barcelona: Barcelona City Council- Museum of Decorative Arts.
Ribas, A. (2008) The utility of Emptiness: A Brief History of the Concept of Emptiness. Barcelona: Barcelona City Council- Museum of Decorative Arts.
Rothko, M. (2004) The Artist Reality. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Salter, K. (2012) ‘Blurred genius: the photographs of Francesca Woodman’, The Telegraph. Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-news/9279676/Blurred-genius-the-photographs-of-Francesca-Woodman.html (Accessed: 19 July 2018).
Victoria Miro (2018) Artists: Francesca Woodman. Available at: https://www.victoria-miro.com/artists/7-francesca-woodman/ (Accessed: 19 July 2018).
Contextography
Primary sources
Groĭs, B. (2016) In the flow. London: Verso.
Sartre, J-P. (1989) Being and nothingness: an essay on phenomenological ontology. London: Routledge.
Sartre, J-P. (1990) Nausea. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Sullivan, G. (2005). Art Practice as Research, an Inquiry in the Visual Arts. London: Sage.
Secondary Sources.
Camus, A. (2005) The myth of Sisyphus. Translated by J. O’Brien. London: Penguin.
Camus, A. (2006) Exile and the kingdom. Translated by C. Cosman. London: Penguin.
‘Standing at this border where land and water meet, watching the seemingly endless recurrence of the waves (though this eternity is in fact illusion: the Earth will one day vanish, everything will one day vanish), the fact that our lives are no more than brief instants is felt with unequivocal clarity.’ (Kang, 2017, p.59)
‘Void or Emptiness can generally be defined as equivalent to absence. Void is, in principle, strictly the absence of sound, for example, is silence, and absence of quantity or equivalent to the number zero.’ (Ribas, 2008, p.24)
This paper will look at the meaning of the marked and unmarked space and its relationship to ‘the void’ in my own artwork. To do so, Rothko’s last manuscript The Artist Reality (2004) and Malevich’s The Nonobjective World (1959) will be paramount to build a brief reflection to the complexity of Drawing's plasticity. I realized, after my last visit to HM Prison Pentonville, that Portraiture has an important role which defines my practice. Thus, I will explore what happened to me as a Portrait Artist after my research in prison. This will not only help me to clarify my own approach related to this subject, but also will build on my thinking thanks to the study of the embodied self.
To avoid dangerous assumptions, such as what the thoughts of the prisoners were, I will emphasize the investigation on the academic description of my own feelings and how the experience of being in that environment affected me. The main findings of this study intend to address the subject, at first, from the generalization of preconceived psychic dominant factors. Therefore, I created a direct connection between my experience at Pentonville and ‘the void’. I will talk about my emotional engagement with questions for the void and the figure. In this essay, this is understood as ‘whiteness’. ‘Whiteness’ is not the word as such. It is a metaphor related to the figure and the ground - the marked and the unmarked space.
This study is structured as follows. In my theoretical referents, we can find Mark Rothko and his book The Artist’s reality (2004). As I mentioned before, it will help to explain my own philosophies and the many layers of meaning that are still hidden within my artwork. The non-objective world (1959) by Kasimir Malevich was included because it is a deep analysis of Art systems.
The White book (2017) by Han Kang was selected due to the transformative experience after writing on the colour white. Then, I will also establish definitions related to the historical and psychological meaning of emptiness.
It is important to clarify that the historical approach to the concept of void will contextualize my personal explorations. Thus, The Utility of Emptiness (2008) by The Museum of Decorative was chosen for the study of the various interpretations of the void. Visual Thinking by Rudolf Arnheim will explain the relationship between the marked and the unmarked ground. Defining what is that compositional space, untouched ground, whiteness (which is important as the portrait itself) is one of the main ideas of this research. I thought that it represented the way I recall my models, but now I know that there are several elucidations and here I explain them.
Finally, I will explore the work of two contemporary artists whose practice is related to emptiness and/or the self, who see this as a springboard for the creation of a project. The first one is the professional photographer Jason Shenai. He was selected because I found during my investigation similar researches, which theorized on the subject of ‘being in prison’ such as Inside Eye. It was an art project created by a group of photographers in Wandsworth prison that started in 1992. The second one is Francesca Woodman and her reflections on the self and space, especially on her latest ‘ghostly’ photographs. After this, I will analyze a series of my own work that I have chosen for this paper.
Rothko’s philosophy of Art stated in The Artist Reality (2004) has a very interesting chapter devoted to Space. The artist states that it has a philosophical basis and it is related to the sensibility of the artists. He also explains that a way to understand artists’ statements is to comprehend the space to which the artwork has been drawn. As a result, we could assimilate and digest the artist attitude toward reality. (Rothko, 2004).
Not only Rothko argues ways to comprehend artists but also Malevich was interested in individual’s visual effects, in order to explore the changes in Art. ‘The conscious and subconscious minds react to everything constituting the environment of the artist and in what relation the “clear” and the “unclear” (the conscious and the subconscious minds), stand to each other.’ (Malevich, 1959 p. 11). For him, it is also a way to understand the aesthetic phenomenon of the artists and by this, he means to understand what is behind the artwork and the artist.
Rothko affirms the understanding of space as the secret meaning behind the picture. ‘It constitutes a statement of faith, a priori unity, to which all of the plastic elements are in a state of subservience.’ (Rothko, 2005, p. 59). The artist also explains that our notions of time and space are bound in a formula called ‘time-space’. This is understood, in popular culture, as ‘The Fourth Dimension’ and he describes it as an abstraction of our senses which needs an intellectual process for bounding those terminologies. Furthermore, plasticity in a work of Art must produce a sense of movement, a process that achieves forms to progress (a physically tangible sensation). (Rothko, 2004)
For Rothko, Plasticity is a virtue. He understands a difference between the figure and the form in this manuscript. One rules over the other and determines how to perceive an artwork. It is true that he wrote his only book before he became the Rothko we all know and probably his way of conceiving what Space means changed during his lifetime. Nevertheless, it is interesting to evaluate his perception. The unmarked space is equal to an incomplete notion of reality/plasticity because it is not convincing and it does not produce a ‘feeling of existence’. (Rothko, 2004)
On the other hand, for Malevich, we must recognize three categories in plasticity. The first one is related to invention. This means the creation of the new. The second one outlines combination. This is related to the transformation of the existing and the last one inquiries into reproduction. This comprehends the imitation of existing. (Malevich, 1959). Malevich studies helped me to categorize my own work as that of combination. This is also a progressive activity that explores the distinct. In my case, the understanding of the marked and unmarked space, whiteness. While I was studying Rothko’s The Artist Reality I noticed that he has preconceived ideas of what Art is and how an artist should interpret them. It was his description of the importance of Space that made me realize that it was a subject that I took into consideration, but I never analyzed it profoundly.
Fate and circumstances have led me to investigate about this subject. I was influenced by Kang’s book, The White Book (2017). It is a developmental experience, a reflection of many thoughts related to the ‘existential vacuum’. Moreover, it is a magnificent metaphor for the colour white that I understood as ‘the void’. ‘I needed to write this book, and that the process of writing it would be transformative, would itself transform, into something like white ointment applied to a swelling, like gauze laid over a wound. Something I needed.’ (Kang, 2017, p. 6).
I reimagined my artwork because I was changing and I understood what was making me criticize the things that I was doing. Later, I saw a progression, an evolution, a sincere visual language. As Kang dealt with her feelings through writing, I felt that I also had to examine in detail my work utilizing as many tools as I can.
On December 8, 2017, I proceeded to go to HM Pentonville Prison after Bruce Wall, Director of the London Shakespeare Workout / LSW Prison Project, accepted my petition to conduct a research inside the facilities. The Prison’s project seeks to gather artists who practice multiple disciplines in a room. Among them, we find actors, artists, musicians, and prisoners.
What started as a project that validates ways in which Drawing was used as a social tool, to prove that it can create a positive social identity in prisons, ended up in an analysis to understand the complexity of my personal visual language and what happened to me after my research.
What was my role as an Artist? I was a guide, another person in the room. The only thing that made me different from my models was the clothes that I was wearing and the drawing materials that I was carrying. I had the intention of reporting what I saw. Therefore, transmitting the absence of freedom and conceiving my models as their own prison made me understood that the decisions they previously took condemned them. The walls of those mental prisons were thicker than Pentonville’s. Nevertheless, I noticed an escape. Not one from reality, but a way in which at least for three hours they could be free again thanks to Art.
Art. On May 15, 2018, I finished my research at HM Pentonville Prison. After spending time with the inmates, I realized that they were overcoming their emptiness through Arts. This made me understand that I needed to fill up the emptiness in my own artwork. For the first time, I understood that I needed to write about the importance of whiteness in my work, but I also tried to get rid of all negatives emotions related to whiteness. I discovered that it has a utility and also a personal meaning.
I tried to find or comprehend other words to help me define the importance of this colour or the absence of it in my artwork, ‘Emptiness, nothingness, pause, silence, and interval are essential parts of any artistic creation.’ (Marchsteiner, 2008, p.12). However, it was not enough because I realized that its utility was and still is the core of my work. To understand it we must start with its history.
Historical Meaning of Emptiness - Horror vacui. In the history of Western, there is a marked tradition of denying void. In Classical Antiquity, there was a dominant opposition to it. Almost every school of Philosophy were against it, except the Atomist school which influence was marginal. Democritus, Epicurus, and Lucretius were the most important representatives of this school).
In Physics, Aristotle describes in detail his opinions and criticism of this concept. We can clearly see his aversion to void. After European Art Nouveau, the Western world accepted void. Nowadays, it is accepted in the cosmological thought. Nevertheless, in the past, the West conceived it as an aberration. We can contrast Eastern traditional thought to it. Specifically speaking, I must briefly mention Buddhism and Taoism which always opted for the opposite. One can immediately see an appreciation of emptiness, it is part of the spiritual world. (Ribas, 2008, p.24)
The concept horror vacui was used for the first time during the Middle Ages. It was refuted for physical, metaphysical, and theological reasons. These were not empirical at all, religion was the way in which life was conceived and the every day was determined by it. ‘…a Creation for which emptiness was accepted would demean God’s perfect nature: God could not consent to such treatment.’ (Ribas, 2008, p.25)
Psychological meaning of Emptiness. It had a role, it played a role, probably the most important one. It was secretly guiding me to understand Art. I just needed a mirror, a human mirror. I needed to go to Prison and understand why I decided to choose it as part of my investigation. There was a before and after in my artistic career.
Now, I am sure that it opened new possibilities for me as a researcher and as an artist because I finally surpassed my own insecurities and I try to reflect my own philosophical preoccupations. I discovered ‘the benefit of nothingness’ as stated by Marchsteiner ‘it is related to an object or a building in which the creator opts to leave virtuous volumes or empty space.’ (Ribas, 2008, p.13) and I decided to study the psychology behind it.
The psychology of perception was first studied by Edgar Rubin and then it was described for the Arts by Gustaf Britsch. This author formulated the first condition of visual thinking making a distinction between what it is intended and was it is not, being the first one the figure and the second one the ground.
It was Rudolf Arnheim who proposed the resistance of the mind when it comes to account reality with self-contained. ‘All early imagery relies on a simple distinction between figure and ground: an object, defined and more or less structured, is set off against a separate ground, which is boundless, shapeless, homogenous, secondary in importance, and often entirely ignored.’ (Arnheim, 1969, p. 284).
A figure is a self-contained object and the ground is the empty qualitatively space. (Arnheim, 1969). My interest is focused on how a self-contained object can be part of the space that we normally recognized as a secondary element. This way, the ground can be also a protagonist and it is important as the figure itself. Both of them are one and sometimes they play the role that they are not supposed to play. The figure can be the ground and the ground can be the figure.
This made me understand that the psychological meaning of emptiness in my work conceives figure and ground as a process with a continuum. Figures are not merely detached entities in a desolate ground. There are certain circumstances, as Arnheim describes, in which the marked and unmarked space can create a continuously modulated pictorial surface and they can be understood as an unbroken sequence of shape and color as we can observe in European post-Renaissance paintings. (Arnheim, 1969)
Emptiness has also many connotations and several are related to negative feelings such as the existential vacuum. One of the most persistent problems in history, according to Viktor Frankl, is the existential vacuum. As this author mentions in his acclaimed book Das Leiden am Sinnlosen Leben (1977) there is a test called Purpose in Life Test (PIL), created by James C. Crumbaugh, in which we can confirm that it really is a modern and contemporary problem, according to the results.
We can understand this phenomenon as the lack of meaning in the life of an individual, it creates a fatiguing and tenacious feeling of deprivation of commitment to one's self and the others. It disintegrates all ideals by questioning the relationship of these, with life, by means of an invariable constant: For what? It hinders all ambitions by making them absurd. At the same time, the search for this aspiration becomes an unaffordable and incessant task.
The ordering of society and the regulations of behavior are so perfectly constructed within each individual that even when the existential vacuum arises, we do not stop losing our almost innate faculties and we are retained by our own instincts. (Frankl, 1977)
At the beginning of the course, I thought that this was the purpose of my research at Pentonville, to overcome this void. Nevertheless, I knew after my research that I didn’t want to talk about me since I was trying to use Art as a catalyst to understand other people.
Now, I would like to mention one of the projects that inspired me, but also helped me to make a distinction of the goal that I was trying to discover when I went to Pentonville. Inside Eye (1992) brought prisoners the possibility of using a photographic camera. It started as a simple workshop for prisoners to learn about photography and it ended up dealing with subjects such as power and control. Prison guards are normally afraid of these two words since prison is the institution, which censures and rehabilitates according to certain rules. (Berger, A. and Schlossman, M., 1997). The greatest fear that prisoners have is related to liberty and the lack of control. I would like to begin to describe the main characteristics of this project and then I will contrast them with HM Pentonville Prison: Drawing as a social tool (2018) project to understand the differences between the goals that I set up.
Jason Shenai, inspired by Judith Ward – a wrongly convicted woman, decided to run a workshop in Wandsworth Prison ‘to use photography as a mean of creative expression and documentation.’ (Berger, A. and Schlossman, M., 1997, p. 1). The artist was willing to teach them the technique and also aesthetics, but it was problematic for the lack of enthusiasm of the inmates. He needed help, so he decided to advertise in Image the idea of his project. Three photographers joined the artist: Derris Santini, Jaap Oepkes, and Marc Schlossman, later they were joined by Adri Berger, Jacgtar Semplay, and Mark McEvoy. (Berger, A. and Schlossman, M., 1997)
One of the surprises of the group, formed mainly by photographers, was that they had to deal first with questions of trusts, confidentiality, and how to relate to prisoners. It was evident that they did not consider Ethics as part of the investigation and it was hard for them to deal with the atmosphere that they described as ‘hostile’.
They decided to study how to best deal and relate to them and their answer was treating them as equals. They described this method as a way in which the inmates conceived them as special to them. However, I consider that Ethics are paramount when you deal with these kinds of people. This is the best way to carry out a research if you are dealing with stigmatized people. The inmates need layers of protection and different considerations when dealing with them. Protecting their identities, their interests, and creating knowledge without hurting them must be completely understood before contacting them.
The importance of Inside Eye is the exploration of the concept of Control. The author mentions that objects such as cameras granted them power and the idea for them to have any sort of control is unimaginable, letting prisoners the possibility of expressing themselves through Art gave them something that they are not supposed to have during their imprisonment. (Berger, A. and Schlossman, M., 1997). This takes us back to question what the purpose of prisons or institutions is. Is it only to feel apart from society, to experiment the feeling of being trapped in our heads - as the authors of Inside Eye questions. Or is it the feeling to experiment ‘the void’ in a controlled environment?
Those are the questions that many experts are still trying to answer, but now we know that thanks to creative workshops we are allowed to listen to what the other has to say and that was the main achievement of Inside Eye and my own project.
This photography was taken during the project. The use of black and white colours in this image, Inside Eye (?), implies that the photographer is trying to capture a dramatic moment where we can see a broken man, confined in a cell. It also suggests unhappiness. In other words, it connotes negatives meanings which try to move the viewer in a particular way. It intends for the spectator to identify himself with the character, who is unknown to us or to see him as a human being who lost his freedom.
This person looks at the horizon waiting for the day he will be free again. It’s a visual representation that acts in a particular way and it was chosen because it describes the imaginary of the photographs which were taken during this project. An analysis of Inside Eye (1992) suggests, that the attitude towards the prisoner was ambivalent. This may be due to the Photographs' lack of experience dealing with stigmatized people. In spite of these negative critics, I think that it was a successful project which can inspire other researchers.
Another of these visual representations related to the void is embodied in Francesca Woodman’s photographs. The importance of Woodman’s photographs related to this paper is the dialogue with the self because it is an exploration of the unconscious and of the artists physical/synergic representation of herself which help forged her reality.
Deborah Levy acclaims her late work by saying ‘Look at her. There she is. She is all there, but she’s always trying to make herself disappear – to become vapor, a specter, a smudge, a blur, a subject that is erased yet recognizable.’ (Levy, 2018). The author explains that she tries to make herself bigger because we are searching for her in that blurriness and also describes her as an inspiration every time she tries to write about a female character.
The viewer can easily identify the psychological charge in her photographs. One could easily feel that burden and her psyche.
Woodman committed suicide at the age of 22, consequently, her work adopted an obscure interpretation. The facts are that many months before she committed suicide, Woodman was not satisfied with herself and had become depressed. (Salter, 2012). On the contrary, her parents state that there is no connection with the interpretation of her last works – the idea that she was trying to erase herself from the world.
We can easily observe that her work was inspired by isolation, depression, and herself. The void was clearly identified and there are traces of it in her background. Nevertheless, we should understand her work as a document of her reality and also as a strong statement of what to be human means.
As we can see in House #3 (1976), her work uses reflecting surfaces such as mirrors to help to fragment the female figure. She constantly dissects herself and isolates certain parts of her body. The human figure is there but at the same time, it is not. As a result of the psychological meaning of her photographs, there are several studies in the United States which tried to discover the meaning behind her work. However, little information is related to the artist reality.
Many experts are sure that her artwork resemblances work from the surrealist and others compare it to the feminist: exploring the ways in which ‘women are forced to conceal and disguise their true selves.’ (Salter, 2012). Nevertheless, it is still subject to debate, but they agreed on two points. The first one is the dialogue with ‘the self’. The second one is the reinterpretation of the female body. (Victoria Miro, 2018)
My reality. My increasing interest in the marked and unmarked space has heightened the need for a study of how to understand and define my own Drawing practice. Analyzing the dialogue with the self in Woodman’s photograph was the first start. This took me to the study of the void and it has become an important aspect of the scope of my artwork. Therefore, it is necessary to mention certain studies such as Derrida’s because it gives us new hypothesis of how to interpret a work of Art.
There are two hypotheses related to draftsman and draftswomen. The first one has emphasized Drawing as a blind process, as opposed to Petherbridge who evaluates it as a natural ‘truth’ or as a mapped structure with prefiguring ideas. At this point, I am going to argue on Drawing as a blind process since conceiving it this way, made me understood my own work. On the contrary, Petherbridge’s interpretation of Drawing is an idealistic perception based on studies which complexities cannot be validated or proven.
The act of Drawing is related to blindness. There is also a connection between the drawer as a seer and blindness. A way to understand my reality as an artist was thanks to Derrida’s explanation on how to write without seeing. Consequently, I realized that I was Drawing without seeing. ‘A hand of the blind ventures forth alone or disconnected, in a poorly delimited space; it feels it’s a way, it gropes, it caresses as much as it scribes, trusting in the memory of signs and supplementing insight.’ (Derrida, 1993, p. 3)
I understood that my subject was Memory, but I didn’t want to write about it. I wanted to write about what made me think and reflect on it, I wanted to explain the origin of my practice and the word memory was just the feeling that the viewer perceives thanks to my own struggle. How do I describe my practice and especially this series of portraits that I selected for this research? They were chosen since they illustrate the last vision of my statement as an artist and also my investigation. There is a difference between anticipation and precipitation.
This series of drawings, which I first called memory Drawings, are now called precipitated Drawings. My hand was disconnected from seeing a model or a visual reference while I represented the figures on my panels. Hand and memory were disconnected. ‘The hand ventures forth, it precipitates, rushes ahead, certainly, but this time in place of the head, as if to precede, prepare, and protect it.’ (Derrida, 1993, p. 4). Drawing as a blind man helped me to build a body of Art which effectively sorted out my interpretation of the marked and unmarked space. I first imagined that there was no need to write about it. It was almost impossible for me to describe what was making me change my practice.
Now, I understand that it was the need to separate the intention of a preconceive work and replace it with the idea of precipitated Drawing. This is a statement of pure psychological reflection after my experience at HM Pentonville Prison. The marked and unmarked space is the unity of the division between Mind and Hand and this time the subject is a reflection on Memory. Making new solutions for the subject and the object, as Malevich said, was a way to go further than ordinary reality and the void represented a non-ordinary feeling that goes beyond the negative connotations that this word has.
In conclusion, to comprehend Art nowadays it is useful to know the importance of Aesthetics especially if we want to know what is behind our ideas. In spite of what people believe, there are differences between communication and perception and both created a fresh field for aesthetics, but this field is outside language. Aesthetically speaking, it was my intention to puzzle out my interest in Drawing related to the marked and unmarked space.
Consequently, I needed to familiarize myself with the history of emptiness and the language of visual representation to carry out my research. Studying the historical and psychological meaning of my topic increased my interest in discovering extensively studies and previous researches which made me understand the complexity of my subject, such as Arheim’s and Derrida's investigation.
The selected artists, Shenai and Woodman, were chosen because they inspired my work in a different direction, but they also made me comprehend what I didn’t want to explore in my own practice. I analyzed those projects and took into consideration the exceptional ways in which they conducted a research/artwork. However, I wanted to make a differentiation between my goals and theirs, so I needed to understand the critics which came after they finished with their investigation/work of Art. The perception of the spectator played an important role and gave these artists a marked connotation of their artworks.
The viewer’s eye normally makes a distinction between the marked and unmarked space. It is often guided by psychological principles that always assume that the figure must be drawn or guided in a certain kind of ground. Although considerable research has been devoted to the figure, rather less attention has been paid to the ground. This is always conceived as a secondary element. The study of the marked and unmarked space has become an important aspect of my practice and it is also place an important role on the research of Aesthetics. Therefore, this study was designed to prove the continuum between figure and ground.
The White Book (2017) inspired me to create a reflection of the many thoughts related to the emptiness. Furthermore, helped me to create a metaphor for the colour white that I understood as ‘the void’. I reimagined my artwork and I saw a progressive visual language. I felt that I also had to examine in detail my work utilizing as many tools as I can.
Drawing as a ‘blind man’ made me understand other possibilities in my practice because I went beyond the idea of regular representation of a figure. I also explored the difference between anticipation and precipitation. Thanks to this study I could find a perfect title for my drawings (Precipitated Drawings) and it also made me understood my new language. In consideration of these ideas, my work seeks to create a dialogue between the self-contained object and the ground to create a process within a continuum. Everything is intended, and the figure and the untouched space are one.
I realized that my work was restricted to the figure because I underestimated the ground. I was misguided and I tried to question why this controversial understanding of a ‘secondary element’ was beginning to be part of my practice and my research.
After my investigation, I discovered that an image representation is in a state of continuous motion. The image is not static at all, it is constantly changing. The visual representation of an image might be an elusive concept, but according to my studies, it is the context what gives the image new possibilities in the Art world. This represents the interaction between two elements that play key roles in the compositional space and meaning of a work of Art.
Bibliography
Arnheim, R. (1969) Visual Thinking. California: University of California Press.
Berger, A. and Schlossman, M. (1997) Inside art: A photographic document of Wandsworth Prison. London: Inside Eye.
Derrida, J. (1993) Memoirs of the blind: the self-portrait and other ruins. Translated by P; Brault and M. Naas. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
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Marchsteiner, U. (2008) The utility of Emptiness. Barcelona: Barcelona City Council- Museum of Decorative Arts.
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Victoria Miro (2018) Artists: Francesca Woodman. Available at: https://www.victoria-miro.com/artists/7-francesca-woodman/ (Accessed: 19 July 2018).
Contextography
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Camus, A. (2005) The myth of Sisyphus. Translated by J. O’Brien. London: Penguin.
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