Introduction

The concepts studied in Part 3 thus far have largely been what I’ve come to expect in the genre of portraiture.  I could relate to the metaphorical story telling of Brotherus and the substitution work of Morrissey as their life and personality exist within the work either in their entirety or partially.  However, this project introduces us to what at first glance appears to be a more tenuous form of portraiture, that of not being part of the image at all.  Instead, the artist is represented by the inclusion of other people or in some cases, nobody at all.  When considering this idea of self-absented portraiture, the immediate thought that it cannot be consider so if the artist is not in the picture, can be quickly dismissed when considering human imagination, interpretation and the creativity that it involves.  People see things that remind them of life experiences, so it’s not difficult to connect other people that seem familiar to the artist or even simple environmental elements with a ‘sense of self’.  In this project, we are introduced to two new artists and one that we looked at previously, all of whom have told their story or a expressed their life experiences through absented portraits.

Maria Kapejeva

Kapejeva’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman takes it’s cues and inspiration from James Joyce’s similarly titled book Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which tells the story of the intellectual and religious awakening of a young man growing up in the Catholic faith in Ireland.  Kapejeva grew up in Estonia in the 1970s and 80s where the culture dogmatically ordained that men and women would be considered equal in the workplace, but that women would be entirely responsible for domestic homemaking and raising the family.  This latter imbalance meant that women could, but rarely did achieve successful careers, instead waiting around for a man to keep them well enough for focus on their domestic duties.  Like Joyce’s lead character, Kapejava rebelled against the idea of her upbringing by using her photography to explore the alternatives to life as prescribed by her culture.   These portraits are of women who Kapejeva relates to in her quest to break the stereotypes of women as she saw them.  In each subject, she seeks to capture the strength of their intellects as well as their determination to flourish in their environment without conforming to expectation.

My two favourite images from the series are shown below.

Here we have a young woman dressed in modern clothing, holding a cat.  Her fashion and makeup is bold an loud, yet she wears a scarf in what could suggest domesticity.  Scarves like this were popular during the middle of the 20th Century with women who did domestic jobs that needed them to keep their hair tied up out of the way.  In this image, though it both complements and contrasts the rest of her clothing which includes a fur coat.  Fur coats used to symbolise status and standing in high society, again an older reference as with the scarf.  I see the woman as being both successful and comfortable tacking everything that comes her way, even the drudgery of domestic life.  For me, the most compelling element in the image is the cat.  There is a common impression that some single people who have cats do so as a substitute to human company.  The extension to that thought is that single women in particular are drawn to cats, which is as ridiculous as it is offensive.  The woman in this picture cradles the cat with the defiant expression that suggests she needs nobody to make her life complete.  As Kapajeva states in her description of the series, the women she encountered were realising their own potential rather than settling for a life of marriage and domesticity.  This image embodies that thought perfectly for me.

In this photograph we have a young woman sitting at at table with the implication that she is completely nude under her jacket.  The elements in this image include her sewing machine, anatomical statuette and a garment draped over what looks like an artist’s easel.  They suggest that the woman is a fashion designer or seamstress sitting in her working environment, which is different from the previous photograph where the woman is sitting in a street scene.  We also have a book titled ‘Seduction’ on the table that ties in with her nude figure.  The model is posing in a seductive way, bearing one breast to the viewer wile the rest of her figure is covered up by her jacket.  The only other item of clothing is her shoes which are a high heel design, also suggesting a seductive glamour.   Finally, we have her expression which is one of a woman in complete control of her self image.  Her gaze out of the photograph suggests that she has her own unique style and will play the part of ‘seducer’ on her own terms.  When I look at this image, like the previous, I see a great strength and independent spirit coming through.  It’s easy to see the connection with the artist in these individual images, but the messaging is much clearer when seen in the rest of the series.  Kapajeva left Estonia to explore her own independence, strength and desire to create her own style.  It’s clear to interpret these images as telling her story, even though she isn’t involved directly in the visual.

Sophie Calle

We were introduced to Sophie Calle in Project 2 of this course.  Her famous work Take Care of Yourself tells the story of her being dumped by her lover via email.  Her reaction to this remote, detached separation was to share the email with a group of women (107 of them).  Calle asked the women to react or respond in their own way, resulting in a piece of work that was mixed media.  In some cases, the women responded by critiquing or editing the text, while others physically destroyed a printed copy of it.  One of the women was a biathlete who shot a copy of the email with her biathlon rifle.  Rather than simply being a photographic project, Calle achieved a belittling and public shaming of her former lover without ever mentioning his name.  She did, as the course notes describe, demean the power of the email and turned it into a joke for everyone to see.  What interested me in re-visiting the work was that the common thread through the pieces within it was of course the email and that was something that was happening directly to Calle.  She was the one receiving it and having to deal with the subsequent heartache.  However, the women she sent the message to responded as if they were Calle.  The concept of ‘Hell having no fury like a woman scorned” is real here as each woman reacts in a visceral way that their ‘sister’ might have.  There is no indication that Calle was close to all who took part in the project, so the resulting message leaves us with an insight, but also mystery around Calle’s actual reaction.  Perhaps the women were being extreme in their treatment of it, or perhaps they were merely an outlet for the extreme hurt and anger that the artist was suffering.  Either way, the work is definitely a self-portrait of Calle’s emotion and personality in its curation and also of her gender and the solidarity of women wanting to be respected even when a relationship is coming to an end.

Nigel Shafran

In his work Washing Up, Shafran presents us with a series of images shot from similar perspectives of a kitchen sink space.  Each composition contains common elements such as the sink, the worktops and the kitchen utensils hanging on the wall.  However, each one is composed with some activity occurring or having just occurred within the space.  Shafran describes with this images the way that our lives pass from the viewpoint of the seemingly banal.  His kitchen sink has the remnants of a recent meal or a reference to the comings and goings of him and his partner, Ruth.   Subtle changes in the lighting from natural to artificial and the inclusion of contextual reference such as tinsel lend suggest the passage of time.  Consider the two pictures below:

In the first image, we have the kitchen sink with the the crockery from a meal drying on the rack.  The scene is muted in colour apart from the boldness of the teapot, washing up gloves and the little blue figure sitting on top of the electrical outlet.  The natural light and the teapot suggest the morning, but the intriguing elements in the frame are the letters behind the sink.  The N and R on closer inspection are made from black electrical tape so are not part of the normal tiling of the kitchen.  Their position behind the taps suggest a relationship with them and the initials themselves are those of Nigel and his partner, Ruth.  What is this saying about them in this composition?  Is there. suggestion of opposites or of conflicting moods?  One could be considered hot and the other cold, like the taps themselves.  The picture leads us to question why the lettering and the contrasting decorating of the wall with what looks like cards and photographs.  Clearly something is being said about a point in Nigel’s routine here, but the contextual elements are broad enough for the viewer to draw their narrative.

When we look at the second image, which is the third one in the series, we see the same scene but with something different going on.  Firstly, the lettering has gone, which further points to some temporary event or issue.  We now have part of a bottle of wine and clear evidence of some kind of party.  When we look closer still, there are a number of paint brushes drying on the counter and hanging from the rack.  Perhaps there has been some decorating being celebrated or perhaps some other form of art is being created.  The space in which to create the narrative is equally broad but in each case a different story is being told about Nigel’s life.

The interesting thing about this series is that as indicated in the notes, the photographer is not part of the composition.  Unlike the direct connections that we have with Kapajeva and Calle, the only thing we know for sure is that this is Nigel’s home environment.  His life is playing out in this ordinary scene and while elements are most likely constructed for the photographs, the sense of natural order and passage of time are strong in this work.  Without knowing anything about the photographer, we are almost improvising a story around him through the simple elements or ‘stuff’ that he includes here.

Conclusion

In each example, the point that self-portraiture needs to have the artist present is reinforced.  If narrative can be created by contextual elements that the artist includes, it makes sense that if those elements are part of their life then the work is a self-portrait.  My conclusion from this research is that our traditional impression of what makes a self-portrait stems from the literal representation of the artist from early painting.  Painters were hugely successful people, but because of the absence of print and photographic media, the only way people got to see them was through their self-portraits.  Even then, the pictures were controlled by the artist, revealing just what he or she wanted representing.  I’m reminded of the so-called likenesses that Holbein painted during the Tudor period.  People saw beauty or ugliness, humour or meanness in his subjects which were controlled to the artist’s extent that the famous story of Anne of Cleves being nothing like her portrait [3] demonstrated the power of the painter.  The same can be said for their self-portraits, which could mislead the viewer both in terms of their appearance and their personality.

If we move away from the traditional to the absent self-portrait, we have to derive meaning from very subtle contextual and cultural elements.  We ask questions about Kapajeva’s actual experiences and Shafran’s actual life but that doesn’t stop us from having an impression of the artist, more that there are many different versions we can see and many different conclusions we can draw.

References

[1] Kapajeva M, 2012, Portrait of the artist as a young woman’, Artist Website, http://www.mariakapajeva.com/a-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-woman/

[2]Shafran N, 2000, “Washing Up”, Artist’s Website, http://nigelshafran.com/category/washing-up-2000-2000/page/4/

[3]Unknown, “Anne of Cleves”, The National Portrait Gallery, https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp11081/anne-of-cleves