Output details
36 - Communication, Cultural and Media Studies, Library and Information Management
Canterbury Christ Church University
Nocture (2008)
Dimensions: 17.75 X 17 inches
Medium: oil on canvas
Exhibited: John Long - Jorgensen Fine Art, Dublin. 3rd – 21st November 2009
This research investigates how different strategies for pictorial isolation are involved in the successful transmission of affect. In the practice there is an ongoing dialogue with aspects of art history in relation to the issue of addressing the question of isolation. The research constructs and composes isolated painterly spaces that allow the spectator to have intense contemplative experiences.
In the history of painting strategies of isolation serve to frame discreet moments detached from ordinary everyday time, allowing painters to creating affective qualities that can be shared with the spectator. There is a force born of the momentary suspension of narrative flow, which can be achieved through arresting time. Isolation is never simply a matter of creating a containing hermetic pictorial space; it is also a matter of bounding that pictorial space within a certain set of controlled and specific art historical resonances and meanings. The research contributes to this ongoing exploration within the history of painting.
Nocturne examines the painterly problem of how the strategies of isolation produce a concentrated transmission of contemplative stillness. Here the isolated figure is posed in an interior at a table in conjunction with a still life arrangement, making references to the genre of domestic interior in Velázquez’s Two Young Men at a Humble Table (1616-17) and Serving Girl with the Supper at Emmaus (1617-18). Nocturne investigates the ways in which this historical genre can be harnessed to create affective resonances within the isolated pictorial space in which the figure is situated. The composition also assimilates Dirck Van Baburen’s The Mocking of Christ (c.1622) through the assonances of line and colour, creating religious overtones. The overall achievement of the piece is to combine narrative, religious and art historical references in order to elaborate a work capable of transmitting an affectivity of silence, stillness and contemplation.
