Painting Things

This essay traces the evolution of my practice-driven, reflexive investigation surrounding the iterative process of painting things. The body of work described in the essay follows the chronology of my studio production as I explore methods of observational painting. The accompanying historical and theoretical research revolves around contemporary painting discourse, object-hood and visual perception. Questions around painting as contemporary practice are approached through topics of still life, materialism, observation, repetition, abstraction, and painting’s material language. The object retains a central role in this research as my paintings are grounded within the context of the still life. Referencing critical theory surrounding human-object interactions, including the writing of Jane Bennett and Bill Brown, I consider how vibrant matter and thing theory inform my perception of still life objects, as well as the vitality and agency of the painting itself. Weaving together writing of WJT Mitchell, James Elkins and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, I propose that the practice of observational painting can reveal a transformational and reciprocal exchange between observer and observed from which dominant subject-object hierarchies are dispelled. Through the repetition, obstruction and the concept of afterimage, I intend for my work to move beyond observed depictions of objects to approach the questions of where an object ends, the subject begins, and how these dualisms mingle and coalesce within the space of painting. To further my awareness and understanding of what constitutes the work of a painting, this essay aims to interrogate the double nature and function of the medium: as a mimetic representation of things in the world, and as an autonomous, vibrant entity composed of its own material logic and language. From this logic, the potentials of representation give way to the immanent qualities of surface, colour, form and materiality. The complexities and limits of representational painting are further addressed through historical and contemporary artist references, including Paul Cézanne, Giorgio Morandi, Philip Guston and Amy Sillman.