Two main topics of discussion dominated my Research Supervisory Committee (RSC) meetings during October, November, December 2021, and January 2022, which I had with supervisory lead, LJMU professor Mark Roughley, and RSC Transart faculty members Robyn Ferrell and Borinquen Gallo: 1) My studio practice, and 2) the construction of my research project approval application, submitted 18 January 2022...(happy birthday to me).
RESEARCH PROJECT
This practice based research project will develop into a new body of abstract paintings and, in the tradition of artists’ writings, a 40,000 word publication. I am a 21st Century, 2nd & 3rd generation Italian American female abstract painter, who acknowledges that living within a western white, male-dominated culture powerfully impacts my life experiences and perceptions. Given these realities, I will base both practice-based research, and writings on my gender/sexual, cultural/ethnic identities, and experiences and perceptions.
RESEARCH PROJECT KEY QUESTIONS
~How can I create a new technique/style of 21st Century abstraction that examines, expresses and constructively comments on gender/sexuality and ethnicity/race?
~How do the histories of philosophy of color, phenomenology of color, and color theory affect women abstract painters, including me, and how can I reframe them to be more inclusive?
~How can I, as a 21st Century postfeminist, abstract painter, through my praxis, constructively contribute to the history of abstract painting so that it becomes more inclusive?
RESEARCH PROJECT AIMS
~Formulating auto-ethnographic, gender-aware abstract paintings and writings.
~Researching the histories of the philosophy of color, phenomenology of color, color theory, gender studies, and ethnic/race studies to determine how they have historically impacted female abstract painters.
~Identifying the roles that an abstract artist’s skin color, ethnicity and gender play within historical abstract painting developments.
RESEARCH PROJECT OUTLINE
~Create new abstract paintings relevant to my identity and culture, and in the tradition of Artists’ Writings, create a new, gender and ethnically inclusive or intersectional philosophy/theory of color.
~Compare and contrast how the histories of the philosophy of color, color phenomenology, and color theory impact abstract painters.
~Examine techniques used by contemporary abstract women painters via readings, exhibition viewings, conducting informal interviews, and critiquing methods used by historically relevant 20th and 21st century abstract painters and artist writers. (See Appendix A)
RESEARCH PROJECT EXPLANATION
The literature review of my praxis is based on how visual artists/writers use color to discuss cultural, ethnic/racial, gender/sex and other identity markers. For example, in an Aperture interview by Annika Klein of artist Becca Albee titled “Full Color Feminism”, Albee says of her photographs and installation "Radical Feminist Therapy: Working in the Context of Violence" series that she researched different lifestyle-oriented and types of color-related therapies, and considers gender constructs surrounding the marketing of color to women, and its relationship to capitalism.
And Tomashi Jackson’s abstract mixed media works, in which she deals with connections between the linguistics of color theory and racialized America's focus on color, is the subject of Risa Puleo’s Hyperallergic article “The Linguistic Overlap of Color Theory and Racism”, dated December 14, 2016. In her writing Puleo addresses how Jackson found her studies of Josef Albers’ color language being used to describe color perception, which mirrored the language of racialized segregation. That inspired the artist to use color perception as an aesthetic strategy for investigating the American history of mid-to-late twentieth century school desegregation, and recent re-segregation of public spaces.
Like Albee’s and Jackson’s work, mine also challenges existing gender and color narratives by examining, from a 21st C. post-feminist perspective, the influence color theory has on artists, including myself. My focus is on how the philosophy of color, color theory and color phenomenology impacts my own creative expressions. By bringing my female/feminine voice, and olive-complected, non-Anglo body to the exclusively male/masculine constructed color theory narrative, my praxis also contributes. (See Appendix B).
BRIEF OUTLINE
Researching color theories led me to the color palette of my new “ChromaTheory- On Color, Painting and Otherness” series. I was inspired by “scientifically generated” skin-tone charts, two in particular, i.e., “The Fitzpatrick Skin Type Scale”, used since the 1970s to determine SPF level required to prevent sunburn, and its contrasting predecessor “Von Luschan scale”, developed as a method for classifying skin color and racial classification by populations. See Appendix C.
My skin tone lines up with the middle shade of each chart, and matches the“olive” labeled tone, meaning I inhabit a non-anglo, non-brown, non-black, or a “none-of-the-above” body, and live in a western society that engages in the glorification of the anglo male/masculine body, while simultaneously institutionalizing sexism and racism. In terms of the sexism, I experience it daily. In terms of racism, I occupy an in-between or liminal space.
From this vantage point, between October 2021-July 2024, and according to the following schedules, I propose to continue the research, creation and exhibition of new paintings, and to write and publish related texts.
PROPOSED PLAN OF WORK
SCHEDULE 1- Research Survey
July 2022-June 2023
~Creation of survey questions regarding contemporary abstract women painters’ inspirations for color palettes and painting techniques used
~Seek LJMU ethical approval to conduct semi-structured survey of contemporary women abstract painters
~Distribution via social media, i.e., LinkedIn, Instagram
Gathering and sorting of survey responses
~Assessment, reflections and potential conclusions of survey results drawn
~Analysis of survey results written
SCHEDULE 2- Studio and Exhibition
November 2021- July 2024
~Weekly studio sessions creating personal expressions, i.e., Develop new body of abstract works on linen, canvas, and paper, inspired by “science based” skin pigmentation charts. (See Appendix D- Work samples)
~Exhibition of praxis work-
--Participation in one or more group exhibitions during 2022, 2023, 2024
--Mounting of solo praxis exhibition during 2024
SCHEDULE 3- Reading/Writing and Publication
September 2021- July 2024
~On-going readings and notes from literature review, (See “Indicative Bibliography” attachment)
~Monthly journal entries of auto-biographically based artists’ writing style…i.e., see website “process blog” link and posts, creative writing, emails, essays, poems, prose, etc.
~A 2024 publication of a 40,000 word collection of artist’s writings
RESEARCH METHODS
Investigations and evaluations will be conducted through an auto-ethnographic studio-based practice and a variety of qualitative analytical art methodological lenses:
Formalism- with regards to visual elements, especially color
Iconography/Iconology- with respect to underlying meaning
Feminism- with consideration of gender/s
Marxism- with regards to socio economics (class)
Biographical/Autobiographical- in relationship to identity/life story, i.e., ethnicity/race
Linguistics- within structuralist and/or deconstruction methods
Psychoanalysis- specific Freudian methods, and Jungian color psychology
ANTICIPATED RESEARCH OUTCOMES
Based on research and documentation, anticipated conclusions to be drawn will include:
~Creation of a series of auto-ethnographically based abstract paintings/artworks using newly formulated inclusive abstract techniques and style
~Exhibition of a 2024 one-person show of selected new works
Publication of a 40,000 word collection of Artist Writings based on:
--Reframing of the history of abstract painting as a feminocentric one
--Origination of an inclusive, intersectional 21st century color theory
