Abstract
M.Tech. (Fine Art)
The purpose of my study is to conduct an investigation of the location of auratic moments in specific portrait paintings. I investigate the process of painting from photographic source material and the translation of physicalities (such as brushmark, texture, saturation of colour, and line) from the photographic source material to the painting. The transformation process itself is also investigated, where the image depicted moves from the photographic source material to the painting. I attempt to locate how these resulting physical translations, which are transgressive and transcend the photographic source image, embody auratic elements within selected paintings by Marlene Dumas. As a figural and expressive painter, who employs photographs as source material in my painting process, I investigate the visual translations in materiality that take place from photographic source materials to paintings in an explication of my own practical component of work.
Walter Benjamin’s notion of the aura in terms of works of art and photography constitutes a central focus in my study. Benjamin (2008:5) describes the aura as: “the here and now of the work of art - its unique existence in the place where it is at that moment.” He also maintains that, “[i]t is no accident not at all, that portrait forms the centrepiece of early photography (2008:14).” I draw on Benjamin’s concepts regarding the aura, as well as conduct analyses of writings by theorists who have contributed to an understanding of the auratic and the relationship between the aura and photography, in order to investigate, and locate auratic moments within specific portrait paintings by Dumas.
My study is positioned within a post-structuralist paradigm, within which semiology and phenomenology are employed as strategic frames, facilitating the location of auratic elements in specific portrait paintings. Semiology is employed to assist in operationalising the index and indexicality which is evident in the painterly translation from photographic source material to specific portrait paintings in my study, while phenomenology presents a bodily experiential comprehension of these paintings.