Stuart Brownlee - 512319

Drawing 2: Investigating drawing - Part 2: Material properties – Project 1: Space, depth and volume – Research point.

The artists below all make work which both creates and denies three dimensions at the same time. Take a look at their websites then make notes in your learning log about these artists, your response to their work and how their work relates to what you’ve been attempting in this project.

Angela Eames: http://ww w .ange l ae a mes.com/ Michael Borremans: http://www.zeno-x.com/index.htmlJim Shaw: http://ww w .simonlee g aller y .com/Artists/Jim_S h a w/Selected_ W or k s

MICHAEL BORREMANS

Borremans, M. (1999) The Prophecy. [Oil on canvas]. Available at: https://www.artsy.net/artwork/michael-borremans-the-prophecy [Accessed: 14 March 2018].

“In his figurative drawings and paintings, Michaël Borremans' juxtaposes somber figures, jarring close-ups, and unsettling still lifes that are at once nostalgic, darkly comic, disturbing, and grotesque. His theatrical staging and enigmatic narratives recall the work of painters such as Odd Nerdrum, Eric Fischl, and Bo Bartlett; he is inspired by art history, but his unconventional compositions and curious narratives are distinctly contemporary.”

Borremans’ paintings are mainly based on photographs he has taken of his hired models in his studio and in many cases appear as unsettling to the viewer (and perhaps the artist). Looking further back in time for comparisons to artists depicting unnerving subjects, he has been linked with both the more gruesome works of Goya, the more earthy works of Velàzquez, and more risqué works of Manet.

Certainly quirky and strange, many of Borremans works seem to treat people as objects:

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Borremans, M. (2013) The Angel. [Oil on canvas]. Available at: https://www.apollo-magazine.com/the-modern-mysteries-of-michael-borremans/ [Accessed: 13 March 2018].

“Angel  is both hopeful and haunting, its pastel tones jarring with the blackened face, deliberately stripped of any identity, charred beyond recognition. The figure in the painting is devoid of all identity, becoming an archetype – but it remains unclear whether the title is to be taken at face value, or whether it is there to further confound the viewer.” Available at: https://theculturetrip.com/europe/belgium/articles/micha-l-borremans-haunted-canvasses/ [Accessed: 14 March 2018].

The Glaze is a painting that has the same effect of isolating the person, the figure as object, in a way that suggests something else may be lurking outwith the painting, some other narrative or another dimension. Is this a figurine and nothing more or is there some kind of surrealist influence?

Whatever Borremans world is, it is certainly uncertain! One of his repeating motifs is truncation, as in the cropped torso in The Apron:

Borremans, M. (2009) The Apron. [Oil on canvas]. In: Phaidon Editors (2011) Vitamin P2: new perspectives in painting. London: Phaidon Press, p.50.

Borremans, M. (2007) The Glaze.[Oil on canvas]. In: Phaidon Editors(2011) Vitamin P2: new perspectivesin painting. London: Phaidon Press, p.53

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The pseudoly formed silhouetted classical bust of the upwardly-mobile hair in The Pendant re-affirms Borremans likeness for depicting images that are strange, unnerving and even other-worldly:

Borremans, M. (2009) The Pendant.[Oil on canvas]. In: Phaidon Editors(2011) Vitamin P2: new perspectivesin painting. London: Phaidon, p.51.

Available at: http://collectie.boijmans.nl/en/object/4232/la-reproduction-interdite-verboden-af-te-beelden/rene-magritte [Accessed: 25 March 2018].

Borremans Four fairies also leaves us with questions. Like The Apron, these mysterious four figures appear to be floating – in what, a vat of oil with the slightest movement dripping over the edge? The sepia tones of the painting at first seem to be comforting, but this is just so weird to be anything other than quite disturbing. We are in a way disconnected from these figures as people just because they are all only half there:

This idea of visualising the figure from behind, is something that René Magritte portrayed in his 1937 painting La Reproduction interdite:

Borremans, M. (2003) Four fairies. [Oil on canvas]. In: Godfrey, T. (2014) Painting today. London: Phaidon Press, p.202. Many of Borremans works are unfinished, deliberately I assume, so as to ask the viewer to complete the image, the story ourselves. What we often see are just fragments – we fill in the picture in our minds.

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Borremans is a painter who paints figures, but is he a figurative painter? His figures don’t have much of a ‘life’ about them, rather appearing almost as maquettes. Taking photographs of models and painting from pictures – is this figurative painting? The results are certainly images of people (truncated or not) in various strange, if not disturbing, poses. I feel that almost because of the weirdness of his paintings, the disconnection from ‘life’, his work is without real connection to ‘living’ people. But they are enticing and challenging paintings.

“My basic material is a photograph, or a film still, which I make myself. I film or photograph the model or situation, the props and the background, and then I’m painting them already. The lights, the composition, the way the subject is placed and the frame, it’s for a painting already. A lot of contemporary painting looks like photography, whereas my photographs look like paintings – the camera serves to make a painterly composition. And then also my paintings refer to statues.”

Available at: https://artreview.com/features/may_2015_feature_michael_borremans/ [Accessed: 14 March 2018].

Borremans drawings are every bit as disconcerting:

These five drawings are all in pencil and watercolour on paper. They are:

Top left: (2001) The swimming pool; Top centre: (2003) The rotator; Top right: (2002) Terror watch; Bottom left: (2002) The (Courmajeur) Conducinator; and Bottom right: (2002) A Mae West experience.

Available in: Dexter, E. (2005) Vitamin D: new perspectives in drawing. London: Phaidon Press, pp.34-35.

These unconventional compositions appear to challenge realism, instead giving glimpses into a world disconnected from reality. The real challenge is directed at the viewer who is being asked to make of these images what they will – if there is a narrative, a story to tell, the viewer will need to come up with their own, as the artist

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isn’t really going to offer any help. For example, in The preservation Borremans isn’t giving us any clues as to what is going on:

A girl with a scuffed face partly shrouded with transparent plastic coating? Or,’getting my hair done’; ‘at the hairdresser’; or something much creepier? Whatever the backstory (if there is one), as in all of his works, the sense of three dimensional space, depth and volume is an illusion made apparent on this two dimensional surface by his skilful use of perspective and application of paint or pencil on paper.

For me, quite the spookiest of Borremans works is the Goya-esque The dance:

Who are these ‘wee beasties’? Hooded figures – puppets of puppeteers, a strange ritual performing

cult? Are they frightening? They certainly draw you in to their circle of, what – delight, madness, perversion? Who knows. Questions, questions and more questions raised for the viewer by the artist, either intentionally or not. We will each have our own answer and interpretation. What is clear though, is that again with the combination of clever composition, skilful application of paint, light and dark, and shadows with suggested movement of the figures, we are presented with an intriguing two dimensional exploration of a suggested or proposed three dimensional vista – a

Borremans, M. (2001) The Preservation. [Oil on canvas]. Courtesy Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp/David Zwirner New York, London; © Michaël Borremans; photo: Peter Cox.Available at: https://www.apollo-magazine.com/the-modern-mysteries-of-michael-borremans/ [Accessed: 13 March 2018].

Borremans, M. (2015) Black mould/the dance. Courtesy Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp/David Zwirner, New York, London; © Michaël Borremans; photo: Dirk Pauwels.Available at: https://www.apollo-magazine.com/the-modern-mysteries-of-michael-borremans/ [Accessed: 13 March 2018].

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foreground dancer, a lightened middle-ground with dancers, and the suggestion of a sand-blown landscape in the background.

While I have been drawn into trying to put my own take on the ‘story/narrative’ of Borremans work, he is insistent that “… we should know that this is painting and nothing but painting”. [Godfrey, T. (2014) Painting today. London: Phaidon Press, p.200].

This dichotomy between ‘painting as painting’ and ‘painting as representative (of something)’ is perhaps best illustrated by Man with bonnet:

Continuing to try and get my head around this I took to my sketchbook. What am I attempting to do with my drawing practice – represent reality in an understandable fashion, or play with shapes, colour, tone, texture in a more abstract-like way of thinking that may or may not represent the reality of the world I see around me?

Soft pastels in project sketchbook.

Reflection:

Borremans, M. (2008) Man with bonnet. [Oil on canvas]. Available at: http://julietartmagazine.com/en/michael-borremans-sweet-gets/ [Accessed: 16 March 2018].

“… man becomes a prop used to display a bonnet.”Available at: https://lauraraborn.wordpress.com/tag/michael-borremans/ [Accessed: 16 March 2018].

No human models readily available, I made use of two articulated drawing mannequins and positioned them in what I think is a composition that asks some questions – am I going to be crushed by this large hand; help, I can’t escape! So, a narrative of sorts (in my head anyway).

But what about the drawing, the painting? Well, using soft pastels in my project sketchbook I made a fairly quick (half-hour) representation of what I saw before me. It’s real, in as much as it’s a drawing in a sketchbook. But is most obviously not real in terms of a representation of a real human hand holding a human body. Does this matter? It is a two dimensional illusion of a three dimensional object. In the end analysis, it is nothing more than a drawing:

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“how does Michael Borremans work relate to what I’ve been attempting in this project.”

Drawing by removing, drawing and layering, – in this project using charcoal – in an attempt to create a believable illusion of space and depth in two dimensions.

“The description of space, depth and volume relies on depicting the way in which light operates on objects and the change in tonality that this produces.”There is certainly a three dimensional quality to all of the Borremans works I have studied here, albeit that three dimensional quality is somewhat otherworldly – using models to photograph to paint – it’s all about the painting, not the subject matter/ objects.

What do I think that my soft pastel sketch adds to my understanding of Borremans work and how it relates to what I am trying to do in this project?

I believe that the tonal representation of the disembodied hand holding the figure does in a way capture my intention. It is not by any means an accurate copy of the inanimate forms before me on the desk – how could it possibly be? (Maybe if it was created by digital imaging through use of technology). It is rather an idea on paper of what I looked at – an illusion, if you like, of objects in three dimensional space

In relation to the charcoal project drawings, I am not sure that I have captured this same sense of space, depth and volume as successfully as I could have – maybe requiring additional removing and layering to more effectively capture that essential essence of three dimensions on a two dimensional surface.

See:

https://stuartbrownleeocadrawing2.wordpress.com/2018/03/12/part-2-project-1-space-depth-and-volume/

Stuart Brownlee – 51231927 March 2018

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