On Januray 15, 2023 I submitted 4 Confirmation of Registration Reports, as outlined in LJMU’s PGR Handbook. My viva or oral reviewer was assigned. The review date is scheduled for February 9, 2023.
The first section for Detailed Report 1 include the a. Thesis Title, which is ChromaTheory: On Abstract Painting, Color & Otherness
and b. Abstract, which is:
On Abstract Painting, Color & Otherness is a creative-based project containing artworks and a written text. It uses methods of abstract painting and sculpture, a documented solo public art exhibition, accompanying talks, and analytical writing. The goal is to add more feminine writing, in the Cixous-ian sense, into the academic canon. The proposed artworks are personally invested, while also commenting on relevant-to-21st-century issues that seek to positively impact social, gender and racial/ethnic equities. By using color palettes that reflect my own othered position as an olive-complexioned, Italian American female, and by paying homage to its proto-feminist roots, the aim is to expand the abstract painting genre.
The philosophical position of On Abstract Painting, Color & Otherness is based in phenomenology and feminist aesthetics. Art historian Linda Nochlin asked her famous “Why have there been no great women artists?” question in 1971, which inspired the field of feminist aesthetics. Nochlin’s question developed in the context of postmodern debates that often begin with an assessment of the western philosophical legacy. The significance of contemporary pre-feminist, feminist and postfeminist art movements is clarified by considering the traditional scholarship they address, and by challenging that through the application of current theoretical frameworks. Looking at the ancient roots of philosophy of art reveals a gendered value structure that persists today. (Korsmeyer & Brand Weiser, 2021).
Because an abstract painting from 1906 by Hilma af Klint’s was only recently recognized as the first purely abstract western painting, a position previously occupied by Wassily Kandinsky’s work, vital art historical reframing, a kind of re-gendering, or “othering”, of the newest painting genre is occurring. Specifically, abstract painting is now considered a “proto feminist” art movement, the antithesis of the “heroic male” space it once occupied. Art methodologies used to analyze On Abstract Painting, Color & Otherness include art historical and intersectional approaches, i.e., formalism, iconography, feminism, autobiography, auto-ethnographic, linguistics, deconstruction, and psychoanalysis.
