In shadows and sunlight

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edu/etd/1747 Recommended Citation Schule, Elizabeth Marion. "In shadows and sunlight.

1 University of Iowa Iowa Research Online Theses and Dissertations Spring 2015 In shadows and sunlight Elizabeth Marion Schule University of Iowa Copyright 2015 Elizabeth Marion Schule This thesis is available at Iowa Research Online: Recommended Citation Schule, Elizabeth Marion. "In shadows and sunlight." MFA (Master of Fine Arts) thesis, University of Iowa, Follow this and additional works at: Part of the Art Practice Commons

2 IN SHADOWS AND SUNLIGHT by Elizabeth Marion Schule A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Fine Arts degree in Art in the Graduate College of The University of Iowa May 2015 Thesis Supervisor: Professor Sue Hettmansperger

4 Graduate College The University of Iowa Iowa City, Iowa CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL MASTER S THESIS This is to certify that the Master s thesis of Elizabeth Marion Schule has been approved by the Examining Committee for the thesis requirement for the Master of Fine Arts degree in Art at the May 2015 graduation. Thesis Committee: Sue Hettmansperger, Thesis Supervisor John Dilg Ronald Rozencohen Anita Jung

5 To my mother, Eileen Walsh ii

6 We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others, that in the end, we become disguised to ourselves. Francois de la Rochefoucauld French Author ( ) iii

7 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my Painting Professors: Sue Hettmansperger, John Dilg, Ron Rozencohen, Laurel Farrin, Susan White, and David Dunlap (Professor Emeritus). I am indebted to my friend and colleague, Zachary Cleve, who has so generously lent his time, expertise, and painting materials. I would also like to thank my friend Nazli Inal who understands and speaks eloquently about the painter s preverbal appreciation of the world. I am eternally grateful to the women who have modeled for me: Kristi Collora, Cassidy Bell, and Charlene Trawick. I feel privileged to have worked with Anita Jung, Professor of Intaglio and Print Media, and Dorothy Johnson, Professor of Art History. Lastly, I would like to acknowledge my mother, father, stepfather, and my brother, Patrick. iv

8 PUBLIC ABSTRACT This dissertation accompanies my MFA thesis exhibition, a series of paintings and drawings. As is the case with any artist, what I create is so shaped by life experience and unconscious desire, that the paintings will speak more truthfully than I can. It is my hope that someone with a shared sensibility will stumble upon my thesis at the right time and be able to relate to it. David Hume made a remark in Of the Standard of Taste about this type of kinship forming between author and reader. We choose our favourite author as we do our friend, from a conformity of humour and disposition. Mirth or passion, sentiment or reflection; which ever of these most predominates in our temper, it gives us a peculiar sympathy with the writer that resembles us. 1 Through art, I am sometimes able to step outside of my own situation long enough to disentangle myself from the ego. In these moments, whatever is preoccupying my mind fantasies, anxieties, joys, sorrows emerges unconsciously. Sometimes frightening aspects of my personality arise in the work a tendency toward self-loathing, detachment from others, neuroses about sex. It is precisely because I am a self-conscious person that I resist analyzing or censoring what disturbs me about my work. As a person who has dealt with trauma, I experience emotions acutely. Though empathetic to others, I find it difficult to connect intimately even with the people I love. Painting from observation provides a way to establish a safe and intimate bond with a person and gain a greater understanding of my relationship with others. Through painting portraiture, I hope to capture the feeling and memory of being in another person s presence. In my self-portraits, I address the longest standing and perhaps the most difficult relationship I ( or any of us) will encounter the relationship to the self. 1 Hume, David, Selected Essays. (Oxford University Press, 1998), 150. v

9 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES... vii CHAPTER ONE... 1 vi

10 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Self-portrait (as a Romantic Poet), 14 x 18, Oil on Linen, Figure 2: Self-Portrait as a Romantic Poet (Study), 14 x18, Graphite on Paper, Figure 3: Kristi (Nighttime), 14 x 18, Oil on Linen, Figure 4: Self-portrait (as a Skeptic), 14 x 18, Oil on Linen, Figure 5: Kristi in Profile, 18 x 24, Oil on Canvas, Figure 6: Nude in Golden Chair, 21 x 28, Oil on Paper, Figure 7: Visitation, 30 x 44, Acrylic Ink on Paper, Figure 8: Afternoon in the Woods, 30 x 44, Charcoal on Paper, Figure 9: Woodland Spirit, 18 x 24, Oil on Canvas, Figure 10: Seaside, 48 x 64, Oil on Linen, Figure 11: Red Sea, 9 x 12, Oil on Canvas, Figure 12: Sea of Fire, 45 x 61, Oil on Linen, Figure 13: Self-portrait (in the woods), 13 x 18, Acrylic Ink on Paper, Figure 14: Self-portrait (as a young girl), 14 x 18, Oil on Linen, Figure 15: Self-portrait (as a soldier), 19 x 27, Oil on Paper, Figure 16: Cassidy, 18" x 24," Oil on Canvas, Figure 17: Charlene (Patterned Wallpaper), 15" x 40," Charcoal on Paper, Figure 18: Charlene, 18" x 24," Oil on Canvas, vii

11 CHAPTER ONE Artist s Statement My recent series of paintings show a female nude partially concealed in an imaginary landscape. I often find myself returning to the idea of disguise and concealment as a vehicle for expressing the malleability of identity. I use dappled light to camouflage the young woman who serves as the subject of my paintings. Her body is veiled by an overlay of dark and light patches that obscure the figure-ground relationship. As the dappled light wraps around the curvature of the model s body, she seems engulfed by her environment. This woman s skin serves as the only layer of separation between her internal experience and the external forces of nature. Her skin, which is alternately a permeable membrane and a protective shield, symbolizes my own struggle to process my perceptions of the outside world. In the paintings, the young woman seems to be permeated by light and shadow making her body appear mutable and amorphous. She seems to waver between the background and foreground as parts of her body are visible and others are hidden. I m highly sensitive to my surroundings and recognize how much my life s circumstances and environment have contributed to and continue to shape my sense of self. This recent exploration of camouflage was inspired by a large scale drawing of a young model in the woods, where sunlight filters through the treetops overhead and scatters light across her body. While I m painting the model, I consider the complex array of invisible entities that make this particular woman who she is: all of her sensitivities, thoughts, emotions, and memories. In looking at and painting someone, the immediacy of the medium, and the urgent desire to grasp the subject, often reveal unresolved issues from my life that influence the narrative. There are times when I project my own experience 1

12 onto the person and revisit the loneliness, boredom, sexuality and recklessness of an earlier stage of my life. Through working from observation, I come to terms with my past experiences and disappointments and develop a more intimate connection with whomever I m painting. In the process of making a portrait, I believe the artist begins to feel a sense of oneness with the model. When I reflect on this series of self-portraits and portraits, I am continually made aware of personas we adopt to defend against our own emotions. While painting, I question whether these defenses harden us toward other people or serve to artfully control how much of ourselves we show others. In my self-portraits, I began dressing up in costumes, in order to re-experience various stages of my life and different aspects of my personality. As in theater, these superficial changes to my outward appearance enabled me to embody different roles and demonstrate the concept of a fluid, changeable self. In my paintings and drawings, I strive to address how our fears and insecurities are revealed in the masks we wear to protect against alienation. To remove the mask is to risk judgment from others but at the same time, it is in this moment of vulnerability when our flaws are on display that the most profound connections can form between two people. 2

13 Frustration and Inspiration I often rely on painting and literature to help me remember how to look at the surrounding world. Though the descriptions in art and books are secondhand, abstract, and unreal, an artist who has a good eye reminds me to appreciate the immediate, the present, the physical, and the sensual. I recall one day last spring when I started putting out my paints. I noticed how the warm cast of the cerulean sky seemed to be in stark contrast with the damp, chilly air. I sensed the meaning behind the slant of sunlight as it turned the leaves and grass a luminous gold. It was beautiful, of course. But, at the time, trying to paint this scene struck me as the worst act of hubris imaginable. My crisis of conscience did not last long. The light was rapidly changing and I had already set up my paints. To throw them out would have been wasteful so I decided to make a painting. That evening, I looked at Constable, Monet, and Corot. I figured that even they must have felt like hacks sometimes. I would question my dedication to painting, if I did not occasionally lapse into feelings of mediocrity and despair when attempting to capture the beauty of nature. The visual thinkers who have held me back from the ledge during bouts of extreme inadequacy have mainly been poets and painters. Most of whom had lifelong struggles with depression an irony that is not lost on me. Because I find inspiration in so many sources, I will only mention the most abiding influences. I hesitate to cite the Bible as a source of inspiration, perhaps due to the fact that my father is a retired minister. I am not religious, but I partially credit scripture, especially the lyricality of books such as Psalms for inspiring my interest in poetry. Over the course of my life and studies, I have come to accept that my tastes are unabashedly Romantic. Although a few of the poets mentioned below may not be 3

14 associated with Romanticism directly, in my opinion, they are either predecessors or descendants of the movement: Virgil, Catullus, Sappho, William Blake, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Charles Baudelaire, Jules Laforgue, Arthur Rimbaud, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Gerard Manley Hopkins, T.S Eliot, W. B. Yeats, Dylan Thomas, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sylvia Plath and Elizabeth Bishop. Listing all of the visual artists from the nineteenth century and turn of the century who have impacted my work would be an exhausting undertaking. Instead, I will outline the major art movements that instilled my love of narrative, mythology, landscape, figuration, and the physicality of paint: Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Naturalism, Realism, The Hudson River School, Thre Pre-Raphalite Brotherhood, Symbolism, Art Nouveau, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Expressionism, The Blue Rider School, Surrealism, Social Realism, and Abstract Expressionism. I have kept communing with the same set of literary and artistic ancestors over the years. They not only provide aesthetic inspiration, but give me the courage to dare and paint the world around me. In those moments when I am at my easel overwhelmed by the task at hand, I remember how many works of art have been born of frustration coupled with perseverance. 4

15 Figure 1: Self-portrait (as a Romantic Poet), 14 x 18, Oil on Linen,

16 Figure 2: Self-Portrait as a Romantic Poet (Study), 14 x18, Graphite on Paper,

17 Figure 3: Kristi (Nighttime), 14 x 18, Oil on Linen,

18 Figure 4: Self-portrait (as a Skeptic), 14 x 18, Oil on Linen,

19 Figure 5: Kristi in Profile, 18 x 24, Oil on Canvas,

20 Figure 6: Nude in Golden Chair, 21 x 28, Oil on Paper,

21 Figure 7: Visitation, 30 x 44, Acrylic Ink on Paper,

22 Figure 8: Afternoon in the Woods, 30 x 44, Charcoal on Paper,

23 Figure 9: Woodland Spirit, 18 x 24, Oil on Canvas,

24 Figure 10: Seaside, 48 x 64, Oil on Linen,

25 Figure 11: Red Sea, 9 x 12, Oil on Canvas,

26 Figure 12: Sea of Fire, 45 x 61, Oil on Linen,

27 Figure 13: Self-portrait (in the woods), 13 x 18, Acrylic Ink on Paper,

28 Figure 14: Self-portrait (as a young girl), 14 x 18, Oil on Linen,

29 Figure 15: Self-portrait (as a soldier), 19 x 27, Oil on Paper,

30 Figure 16: Cassidy, 18" x 24," Oil on Canvas,

31 Figure 17: Charlene (Patterned Wallpaper), 15" x 40," Charcoal on Paper,

32 Figure 18: Charlene, 18" x 24," Oil on Canvas,

Structures. Iowa Research Online. University of Iowa. Janis Finkelman University of Iowa. Theses and Dissertations. Spring 2013

Structures. Iowa Research Online. University of Iowa. Janis Finkelman University of Iowa. Theses and Dissertations. Spring 2013 University of Iowa Iowa Research Online Theses and Dissertations Spring 2013 Structures Janis Finkelman University of Iowa Copyright 2013 Janis A. Finkelman This thesis is available at Iowa Research Online: