Artist Research- Bracha Ettinger
Artist Research
Bracha Ettinger
Artist and Theorist
After recently reading 'visual politics of psychoanalysis' I became more aware that there are other artists that have similar views to me in regard to the relationship between art and other fields. This fluid outlook is something used vastly to try and answer the questions that surround differing fields. The blurring of lines between art, politics and psychology is pivotal to opening new methods and concepts for progression and understanding. The book makes reference to many artist at length, however Ettinger is of specific focus. The theology discussed surrounding the phallic gaze and specifically the matrixial position of females within society is something developed by Ettinger.
At first I thought she was solely a psychoanalyst developing theory, in depth regarding gender and expanding on the notion of +/- position. However, the book goes onto reveal that Ettinger's fields overlap and expand to art and politics also. This is something I have been aiming to achieve throughout my degree so far and would hope to continue. This is why I ensure I am well read in many fields and interlinking subjects. To ensure that I am able to approach theories and concepts with the best informed view. This combination of knowledge and fields is something that evidently helps, as Ettinger embodies.
Her theory work is of specific interest to me as it analyses how the differing view of the individual can add dimension to a situation. Her own theory is based upon the phallic nature of this gaze throughout society. However, if the theory was to be applied to other aspects how would it work. For example, the 'capitalist' gaze could be a notion of modernity and gaze that has stemmed not only from the phallic but also from the western conception of the phallic power.
Relevant and interesting links;
(some critical readings and evaluation of her theology)
Artist Analysis
Work produced by Ettinger is usually done with oil paint. This painterly quality is something that I find far reaching, through time and themes. The use of oil paint is not restricting to a certain subject or time period, such as modern technology based artwork. Within the oil paintings, likely themes and figuration comes from the tragedy of war and the human condition. Here a stark link arises between fields in Ettinger's life. Initially trained as a psychoanalyst and practicing as one in her early career, Ettinger's paintings reflect much of the theory within her psychological work.
Eurydice n.23
The passage between figures and abstraction is something that appears readily within her paintings. This visualisation brought together with the paint begins to define the unconscious and this subject is reoccuring within her work. Her theology surrounding the maternal and the matrixial/psycho-sexual are also themes that inspire and visualise within her work. Therefore there is an overlapping psychology of the works itself, the painting work could possibly be a type of release for one area of the brain while the other theories regarding her psychoanalytic research concluded and take hold.
L'Histoire
The above painting was done in response to a harrowing wartime image. The set of black and white images depicts jewish woman, stripped, many with infants. These woman are lined up in front of two men, the ultimate phallic gaze. The next image shows the woman lying on the ground after being shot by the men. The blurred images show the woman in a sense of limbo between life and death, held forever in a photograph. Although there is endless conclusions to be drawn about the traumatic sense of this image holds for not only the victims but what it reveals about the human condition. The photographer, the men in uniform and the woman. The removal of individuality before the deaths of the woman is what is most traumatic when analysing the crime in a phallic sense. The bearer of life being stripped back and castrated from the world as they hold the risk of continuation of a inulled ideology. The zoomed in image of the face of a victim removes her from existing in only the image as the photographer intended.
The depth of this painting as a historical, psychoanalytic and gendered analysis is something that Ettinger's work does independently.
Comments
Post a Comment