Edvard Munch- Portraits, National Portrait Gallery
Edvard Munch’s exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery was a sight to behold. Munch’s vibrant portraits remind me a lot of Francis Bacon’s at his last exhibition, also at the National Portrait Gallery last year. This is because both artists find this beautiful degree of intimacy within their subjects. For Bacon, this materialises through his portraits’ undeniable sense of movement, as if his subjects had been caught in a moment of flinching, or looking away and laughing at another present in the room. Munch, instead portrays this intimacy in a much more subtle way. In his works, the most delicate sparkle in the eye, or slight positioning of the head, gives an unbelievable amount of character to his subjects, as if the viewer could know them themselves. One of my favourite paintings in the collection that really supports this is Munch’s depiction of Hans Jæger, a Norwegian philosopher and anarchist. In this portrait, Jæger sits in a café, a frequent headquarters for his anarchist movement the Krisitiania Bohemians. Without knowing the character, we immediately are struck with an intensity, Jæger is an imposing and utterly terrifying figure. He is posed in a relaxed position that feels as if he has just slowly leaned from his leather chair and directed his steely, monocled gaze towards the viewer, eyes fixed intensely through the brim of his hat. I think that this portrait is simply gorgeous, it really allows the viewer to form a relationship with the subject, with little to no knowledge about him, he still comes across as this terrifying authoritative figure.
I didn’t realise before viewing this exhibition that Munch was such a fantastic printmaker, with a couple of drypoints on display. It wasn’t the drypoints, however, that piqued my interest in Munch’s printwork, it was instead his beautifully evocative lithographs, such as the one attached above, ‘The Brooch. Eva Mudocci.’. Munch created three lithographs of Mudocci, and with no prior knowledge, it is clear to see that Munch depicts her on the stone as only a lover or admirer could. Mudocci was a touring violinist from Brixton, who is believed to have been one of Munch’s lovers, and this is quite evident within this image. The subjects soft gaze is the opposite of Jäger’s steely one, her eyes gently settled, lovingly fixed in the distance. The power in this beautiful lithograph comes, for me, in the subject’s wild hair that frames her portrait. The other striking lithograph that stands in stark opposition to this one, is Munch’s own self portrait, Munch is similarly framed in black, but appears as a deathly floating face, accompanied at the bottom of the piece by a skeletal arm. In this portrait, we see Munch’s preoccupation with the sickness and death that was present throughout his whole life, both for him and those around him. The range in Munch’s portraits and the curation of this exhibition was fantastic, and really allows the viewer to step into Munch’s world, and experience the intricacies and subtleties of character in the subjects he painted.
Fay Ballard- Lecture
Perhaps the most important aspect of Unit Two for me, was a lecture by the artist, Fay Ballard. J.G Ballard, Fay’s father, was one of the first authors that introduced me to more ‘serious’ writing when I was younger, and I remember spending a good few weeks trying my best to get through Crash without curling up into a ball and crying because of how viscerally disgusting it was. It was certain that I knew I would identify with Fay because of my love for her father’s work but I was surprised to see how much in common our reasons for making work are. Fay began her talk by discussing drawing as a conscious and unconscious act. Through our artwork, we both make conscious decisions, and this allows unconscious decisions to take place, both in the mind, and in the artwork. The death of Fay’s father was a traumatic event for her but she suggested that confusingly, it was also an intensely liberating one; this is due to the fact that her mother died when she was just a child, and perhaps because of her father’s difficulty in dealing with this, or his public life as an acclaimed author, Faye never really came to terms, or was allowed the time and space to even mentally process what had happened to her. Through her series of drawings, taking objects from her childhood home, Fay tried to reinstate her mother within herself, and tried to understand her as a person, as well as her passing. Fay stated in reference to these drawings, this time of her deceased father’s objects, “this is my dad, this is a portrait of my father.” I realise that this is an incredibly profound statement that really resonated with me and within my own art practice. I also found it incredibly interesting that Fay didn’t just stop with this “re-ordering of the past”, but carried on to look at this from a psycho-analytical point of view. Ballard and fellow artist, Judy Goldhill, put on an exhibition at the Freud museum, both artists had experienced parental loss and explored this theme throughout their work. This exhibition was then curated by a psychoanalyst. I find this immensely interesting, and psycho-analysis was never something that I would’ve usually explored next to my work, but it felt immensely relevant now after hearing about Fay’s practice. I was lucky enough to have a 1-1 tutorial with Fay after her lecture, and her words of encouragement were very much needed, in tackling making work about a very delicate subject for me.
Dream, Phantasy and Art- Hanna Segal
I was recommended this book by Fay Ballard, along with another couple, and this piece of writing is one of the most important discoveries I’ve had in my creative journey. In this book, Segal discusses Freudian theories around the creative process, and the process of emotional reparation within artwork. Through discussions of her own experience in psycho-analysing patients, Segal discovers how and why we compartmentalise our emotions, be they grief, loss or anger. I was particularly interested with one of the last chapters in the book, entitled ‘Art and the Depressive Position’. In thus chapter of the book, we explore art as a way of working through trauma, where a non-artist would find more difficult and non-productive ways of dealing with grief, the artist can transform this inner sadness into something beautiful, an external object that can contain and act as a conduit for these emotions. I think the most powerful quotation in this book for me, that really resonates with my current work and creative practice is, “the artist seeks to locate his conflict and resolve it in his creation. I can really see how this book was important in Fay Ballard’s work, in understanding her own psyche in the creation of work, and recognising why the work should be created. This book has certainly reframed the way I think about my work and my creative process, and I’m excited to delve more into psychoanalytical aspects to artwork.
Ollie Norris 