The Portrait

What is a portrait? National Galleries of Scotland senior paintings conservator, Lesley Stevenson describes a portrait as an 'evocation of that person'; it gives the sense of that person, but 'doesn't necessarily have to look like the person', but it would have to 'give some impression' (What is a portrait, 2011). In the same video, Senior Curator of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, David Taylor describes a portrait as a 'depiction of a person which can be idealised to flatter them', or an 'impression' of their personality, or even an 'abstract depiction of some element about them'. The significant word here seems to be 'impression' and I tried to draw on this throughout the process of this portrait exercise. Going into it, I didn't have many creative ideas to make the project interesting. In the end, I just decided to do something that seemed true to me.

Something that is highly relevant to me at the moment is the production of images. At no point did I consider creating portraits that were not images, as I felt this would not give the truest impression of me, and as 'impression' is the key I felt that was the way to go.

As we have been learning, an image 'is a sight which has been recreated or reproduced' (Berger, 2009, p9). What, then, is a sight in which I would find myself? Each day I tried to capture myself doing something different, but still unrehearsed and unposed. The fact that the image is a reproduction renders this 'un-rehearsal' somewhat redundant as no matter what, the image will never match reality in authenticity. But it's the thought that counts.

MONDAY

Eating seemed like a good place to start. If I'm not eating at any given moment in a day, chances are I'll be thinking about eating. This seemed like the best way to introduce myself in this durational piece. I had actually forgotten about the project at this point and while eating dinner spontaneously asked one of my housemates to snap these images immediately after remembering, and I feel like this adds to realism of the images.  

TUESDAY

Food again. But this time asking the question, what goes into the preparation? I had not forgotten about the the project this time, and wanted to incorporate the preparation for this particular day, and as this was my first time making a pizza from scratch I wanted to document my achievement (hence the end result photo).

WEDNESDAY

This is where things get interesting. I hadn't had any lightbulb ideas about an original concept for Wednesday's portrait and was playing around on my phone when I downloaded a GIF app, that allows users to easily create their own GIFs. This is a demonstration of the kind of cinematic, nightmarish imagery that floats around my head, just waiting to be put to film. Dick Higgins spoke of the emergence of 'intermedia' (1978, p12) and I think that GIFs are a current example of this, being work that falls 'between media'. In this example, between a still photograph and a film. A silent film, as GIFs lack sound. It is purely visual ideas. While the difference between the media being used is not as vast as some other examples Higgins provides – such as general art media and life media, a la Duchamp, or between sculpture and hamburgers in Claes Oldenburg's works – it is the merging of two popular media to create something different, in particular something that would not exist without the internet.  

THURSDAY

Another GIF. This time less conceptual, and more practical. Homework and uni preparation are a huge part of my week so it's important that these should feature in the representation. This was the first portrait for the week taken by my boyfriend who I thought would feature heavily in this project, and I was curious to see how that would shape the outcome (i.e. would my portraits reflect his view of me, rather than my view of me?). However, it turned out that he would only play a bit part as he was away most of the week and thus didn't have much of an impact, which I must admit I was somewhat disappointed about.

FRIDAY

I had originally intended to capture a moment when I was actually working, but this seemed more true to my work experience at the moment as we have all have a lot of fun together, and there is a lot of joking around going on in order for us to make the time pass. In this particular instance, our boss has taken this picture in which my co-worker Robyn and I are pretending to be 'in a jar' that our boss has put us in.  

SATURDAY

The second image that Zac has captured. He obviously took a lot of care in taking the photo. It just goes to show, never trust a man with a beard. I liked how the image turned out and decided to use it anyway.

SUNDAY

In today's lecture, Bindi Cole spoke of the importance of family and community in general and in artistic expression, and I'm very glad I got to include an element of family in the representation, partly even just to ease the guilt I feel at the irregular amount of time I am able to see them each week. But they are incredibly important to me and have strongly shaped who I am, and what there is to be represented as 'me' and so their inclusion in the project is essential. Bindi's message may have been more political than my own but the emotion behind the image is still felt.

Overall, I feel these portraits give a fairly accurate 'impression' of myself and my life. But I would be interested to find out if those that know me would agree with this as well. As an audience, are you aware that this photographer has 'select[ed] [these] sight[s] from an infinity of other possible sights' (Berger, p10)?

REFERENCES

What is a portrait? 2011, YouTube, National Galleries of Scotland, 28 November, retrieved 21 April 2013, < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7exQDKFg0I >

Berger, J 2009 Ways of Seeing, Penguin Classics, London, UK.

Higgins, D 1978, A Dialectic of centuries: notes towards a theory of the new arts, Printed Editions, New York.