To be able to evoke the body without its physical representation is something that I recently got interested in, even though I haven’t been able to explore as much as I’d like to yet. I felt drawn to this idea after studying more about the works of artists such as Félix González-Torres and Doris Salcedo, who use objects, words, spaces and materiality in general to communicate their ideas.

 

As I’m exploring intimacy, which is something that relates to the personal, to being close/near, to the base of human experience, I feel that it could be powerfully expressed in more conceptual ways, or in different forms of working with the material. Later this term, I realized that I have the possibility to explore that in the installation/display method as well.

 

By focusing on the aspect of memory related to intimacy, I believe that giving hints, or exploring the body/the presence of a body in different ways, connects to the idea of the fragility and ephemerality of the memory; instead of the physical body, that eventually goes away, the human presence can remain through different forms of representation and/or use of materiality.

 

“If intimacy is a kind of unity, then the absence of the Other leaves a mark, a breaking point that renders its absence a presence. The mark stands as a witness to a shared experience, signifying the fleeting ephemerality of love and life. It is through such marks that what has passed endures” (WATLINGTON, 2017, p.85).

 

This idea presented by Watlington in her “Index of intimacy” can be, I believe, also related to the practice of drawing: “Absence can exist only as the consequence of the other; it is the other who leaves, it is I who remain” (WATLINGTON, 2017, p.85). The line that stays in the surface after making a gesture is what remains from my body, is what remains from that short encounter between two physical forms that got in touch at some point. It is, at the same time, the presence of the body that passed through that space, but the absence of the same.

 

As John Berger said, “before drawing evolved into a ‘questioning’ of something visibly there, it was a way of addressing the absent, of making the absent appear” (BERGER, 2007, p.109). Those are questions I’ve been immersed by during my studio practice in the last few months.

 

Besides the practice of drawing and the different possibilities of representation, I tried to bring these reflections through the materials I used, as objects charged with meaning by their own physical characteristics. For this term, the decision to use translucent/transparent surfaces comes from the desire to communicate the sense of fragility and presence/absence; the decision to use pencil comes from the idea of something that can be erased, bringing the feeling of ephemerality and time; the continuation of the use of the embroidery comes from getting inspired after reading Louise Bourgeois’ words about her own practice of stitching - as an act of repairing, of keeping things together.

 

An artist that was a starting point for me to explore different ways of using the materials that I’ve already been using before is Tanoa Sasraku, presented in one of the first tutorials I had in Unit 2. The way that the artist works with paper in the edges of the pieces, almost as if it is turning into another material, was very interesting for me. It is as if the paper became something else. After coming across Sasraku’s body of work, I thought of using materiality to express my main ideas of ephemerality, passage of time and intimacy, for instance, by ripping paper, by focusing on the flowy aspect of the fabric, etc.

 

“I must let my senses wander as my thought, my eyes see without looking... go not to the object; let it come to you” (THOREAU, 2010). This process of starting from the object (material) and letting it act by itself until I could decide how to work with it, was something that permeated the majority of the works that I worked on during the last months. “It is never we who affirm or deny something of a thing; it is the thing itself that affirms or denies something of itself in us” (SPINOZA, 2010).

 

This perspective of coming from the reflections and sensations that the material communicated for me to then start working on it was something that added a new layer of meaning in the work. It is also an intimate exchange, one between two bodies: myself and the materials. I felt even more attached to the process and, therefore, with the work.

 

“Each human is a heterogeneous compound of wonderfully vibrant, dangerously vibrant, matter. If matter itself is lively, then not only is the difference between subjects and objects minimized, but the status of the shared materiality of all things is elevated. All bodies become more than mere objects, as the thing-powers of resistance and protean agency are brought into sharper relief” (BENNETT, 2010, p.13).

 

Just as my body is composed by matter, the matter that is the materiality of my work actively engages with me and with the world, creating a web of connections. These layers sometimes are not that perceptible, the layers where the objects act as more than just objects, but as something with deeper meaning and with the capacity of evoking something else. Therefore, together with societal and cultural values over specific objects, I believe that the materiality can open new forms of communication, evoking what seems to be not present, between presence and absence. Everything seems to be in the space in-between.

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References

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BENNETT, J. (2010) Vibrant Matter: A political ecology of things. Durham: Duke University Press Books.

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BERGER, J. (2007) Berger on drawing. London: Occasional Press.

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SPINOZA, B. (2010) Short Treatise II, in BENNETT, J. Vibrant Matter: A political ecology of things. Durham: Duke University Press Books.

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Tanoa Sasraku (2021) Gradient Gate (Terratype) [Embossed newsprint, thread, toner, foraged Torbay red sandstone, fixative spray, Devon seawater]. Available at: https://www.tanoasasraku.com/2021-2022 (Accessed: 12 may 2024).

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Tanoa Sasraku (2023) Vest FrontR [Newsprint, tailor's chalk, graphite, fixative spray, thread, St Ives seawater]. Available at: https://www.tanoasasraku.com/2023-2024 (Accessed: 12 may 2024).

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THOREAU, H. (2010) The Journal of Henry David Thoreau, in BENNETT, J.  Vibrant Matter: A political ecology of things. Durham: Duke University Press Books.

 

WATLINGTON, E. (2017) An Index of Intimacy, in HULDISCH, H. An Inventory of Shimmers: Objects of Intimacy in Contemporary Art. London: Prestel.