Rose Nicholas: A Level Unit 1 - The Self Portrait

Robert Lenkiewicz

Robert Lenkiewicz was one of the South West England's most celebrated artists of modern times. Perennially unfashionable in high art circles, his work nevertheless popular with the public. He painted on large scales, usually in themed projects investigating hidden communities or difficult social issues.

Robert Lenkiewicz did many different projects throughout his life, they include 'Love and Romance', 'Jealousy', 'Orgasm', and so on. All in all he had 24 projects about his life and personal matters. One project was 'The Self Portrait', in it he did many paintings of himself, usually including a nude woman or mirrors. A reason he liked mirrors is because he felt he could relate to quotes from famous artists.

'Every day in the mirror I see death at work' - Francis Bacon

'The mirror, above all - the mirror is out teacher' - Leonardo Da Vinci

'All the paintings are 'self' portraits, only i do not believe in a 'self'. we identify an individual by the boundary their body forms, but nothing is to do with 'self'. 'Self', like 'justice', 'truth', 'beauty is poetry'. - Robert Lenkiewicz

My own interpretation
on his work. -
watercolour

Many of his paintings of himself are with various girls or a girl called Mary. Many people said he was reflecting himself against another woman, almost saying their who he wishes to be, and others say it's woman he is currently was sleeeping with. I personally feel in the painting the way he touches them within the paintings show him having power over them.

Lenkiewicz said 'These formulae are so loaded and cross-referential that the visitor also must resist temptation. The work can be misunderstood. 'Patterns' of obsessive behaviour are what interest me - the form not the content'

'To paint oneself is to paint the portrait of a man who is going to die. Relationships are mirrors. The painter looks into the mirror to paint himself; the lover looks into his lover to love himself. She sits on my lap, a reflection of my aesthetic addictions; a reflection in a reflection. The painter reflects upon the reflection. The woman reflects upon the painter reflected. I am thinking of your partner, priest, or your spouse, art historian, and you, the one holding this catalogue with good humor or with irritation. I am thinking of 'that' person, you know the one, They could all be on my lap in these paintings. I am no longer young, less fit than I was and still mean what I say. It's not me that annoys or threatens. It is the knowledge in the heads of my companions, my doubles. And if your smile or recognition, your smile of humane resignation is the smile I hope it is; then you are my double too.

This explains why in many of his paintings he is sat with a lover in-front of a mirror, reflecting himself and their relationship, and I feel he needs to see it to make it feel real, as he has a strong positive connection with mirrors. When Robert was painting Mary they had a very intense relationship. He found her addictive and became very jealous. The paintings with him and Mary show vulnerability towards her. The project became a crossroad for him, with the understanding that relationships do not solve the problem or existence.

Lenkiewicz was great at researching into colour, not in a pigment sense, but in the way he translates the experience onto canvas. He had the ability to break down ton and colour into a huge range of shades and hues which allowed him to push his colour to a great richness of hue and yet stay in the boundaries of the way the eyes see. He found colours a huge part of his work as it creates emotions and a feel for his paintings. He would normally just use standard canvas', but it did depend on the state of his finances. He would usually use oil paint and apparently was very fussy about the order of his paints on his pallet and occasionally didn't finish his paintings, I personally prefer his unfinished artwork.

Diane Arbus

Diane Arbus was an American writer and photographer; her most recognised work is her black and white photographs of deviant and marginal people, for example circus performers, giants, transvestites etc. She brought and open minded eye to society's underside. Diane Arbus grew up and lived in New York City and committed suicide at the age of 48 due to depression.

Arbus liked to focus on the spectators morality of her photography, by showing people who usually aren't accepted in society in their own environments. She likes to show people unmasked and captures her subject usually looking miserable and isolated. I feel she is trying to show we live in a world in which everyone is hopeless;y isolated. I also feel that Arbus found normal people very scripted and boring. She was genuinely interested in meeting and photographing 'freaks'.

'Freaks was a thing i photographed a lot' she wrote. 'It was one of the first things i photographed and it had a terrific kind of excitement for me. I just used to adore them, I still do adore them. I don't quite mean they're my best friends but the made feel a mixture of shame and awe. There's a quality of legend about freaks. I like a person in a fairy tale who's stops you and demands demands you to answer a riddle. Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with the trauma They've already passed their test in life.'

During her career, Arbus took many pictures of nudist, sex workers and people in bed. I feel she does this because she said sex was:

'The quickest, purest way to puncture a person's facade'

She got people in their most personal places, showing their true selves. I feel she is very affective in doing so, you feel very intimate when viewing her photos, you're not sure whether you are intruding someone else's personal space which causes you to feel slightly uncomfortable. This really breaks the barrier down and makes you feel equal to them as your probably feeling as uncomfortable as they are.

My interpretations of Diane Arbus's work

Jenny Saville

Jenny Saville is a young famous artist from Cambridge, Saville is known for her large scale painted depictions of the naked obese woman and by all means not contemporary in te way she shows a woman's body, she shows it in a grittier side, by using flesh and crude positions. Most of her paintings of large naked woman is how she see's herself, one of her most famous paintings is of a large naked woman perched on a stool with large thighs hanging over it and looking rather uncomfortable, in the painting she's pulling he head back but still slightly glancing at the viewer, she also in-craved a feminist quote, 'If we continue to speak in this sameness, speak as men have spoken for centuries, we will fail each other again.'

Saville said she painted the painting out of the need 'to try-visually-to find a female language and a feminine space'. Saville would usually work on a huge scale creating huge pictures of naked woman to emphasis her feminist views, traditionally in art they say it's unheard of to have a painting of a woman larger than the man spectating it, as it will make them feel inferior to them, Her paintings would span around seven feet by 6 feet.

Savilles painting 'Plan' is a self portrait of herself from a low angle, so the viewer looks up to her. The painting causes great discomfort when you catch eyes with the subject, Savilles meaning behind the painting was to remind the spectator of how the history of art is male dominated, and how we have accustomed us to look at the paintings of the female body: as an object of entertainment and beauty. This painting, once again challenges the male fantasy by empahsising unappealing body components such as fat and pubic hair; while at the same time empowering the subject though the use of an impressive scale and how she is looking at you.

My interpretation of Jenny Saville

'There is a thing about beauty. Beauty is always associated with the male fantasy of what the female body is. I don't think there is anything wrong with beauty. It's just what women thing is beautiful can be different. An there can be a beauty in individualism. If there is a wart or a scar, this can be beautiful, in a sense, when you paint it'. - Jenny Saville.

My interpretation of 'Stare' - Acrylic paint

Saville has an interesting way of using her paints, instead of using a palette she likes to mis individual pots of colour; she could sometimes have up to 300 pots for painting. She would use oil colours and occasionally added more oil to give movement to the paint and so to the overall composition . She likes to make paintings look messy and bold, I feel she does this to step away from the norms or historically correct art.

My take on Jenny Saville

Saville would usually make one painting into a project by starting off with sketches of her visions and prototypes she would take photos or a model in the position she wanted, to get the right proportions but whiles she paints she will change the persons to be more ugly and to look more like herself. She sometimes does self-portraits of herself in the mirror and uses many lights to creates the right shadows.

Photographic paper

I personally really like Savilles work, I feel it's very interesting to look at and it definitely stands out. I love the fact she does her paintings on such a large scale to really prove her feminist points. I admire the idea behind her paintings about the meaning of 'beauty'and what is socially 'normal'. I also feel she is a great and talented painter and really captures the emotion and message within the paintings.