Rins Art
Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2012 12:27 am
I was recently reading a discussion on another forum about Rin (in particular, her artwork, like the mural she painted). I copied an entire essay one anon wrote about her mural (in spoiler tags in case you don't like reading huge walls of text), but the tl;dr seems to be that its a abstract/surrealist painting that talks about the impact that her disability has on her identity.
Basically, I was wondering what you think Rins paintings mean, and if anyone knows their art history (I don't) if the influences the person below talks about are more or less correct. I wonder how the artists who were in charge of actually making the art for Rin tackled the challenge of trying to paint images as if they were in her position. Especially since it seems like a really important factor for her character.
Although abstracted, there is nonetheless a great deal of clear figuration within Rin’s “No Idea”. The thick-bordered figures furthermore stand in front of a clearly delimited background, which alternates from a murky blue to a light beige but is always consistent in colour. The illusionistic depth within which the figure-ground relationship is executed makes this image reminiscent of a Surrealist dream landscape, albeit a highly syncretized one, borrowing elements of fantastical, anatomical forms from Salvador Dali, colour from Roberto Matta, and narrative from Arshile Gorky. And the sheer oppressiveness of the multitude of figures that crowd the image plane perhaps even evokes the labyrinthine drama of Dorothea Tanning. However, the public and explicit nature of its medium (muralism) and the intensely autographic mode of production (painting with the feet) brings us closer to the ideals of Abstract Expressionism, with its emphasis on a communicative, apolitical (yet ironically public) gesture. Here I will argue that “No Idea”, a poignant, yet failed neo-Surrealist oeuvre that borrows themes of Abstract Expressionist production, creates an ambivalent statement about Rins identity and her corresponding search for identification in the face of her disability.
The piece speaks with a confessional intimacy that immediately seems to contradict the large scale and public spectrum of the mural. This contrast is similar in nature to the dynamic of Rin’s search for identity: although she does not say so explicitly, the paintings imagery makes it clear that she is in constant struggle with the overwhelming presence of her disability, a looming force which threatens to eclipse any form of conscious identity she might otherwise assume. In other words, her identity is based on the polarity of her castrative disability and the artistic expression with which she escapes that trauma. That she speaks so loudly here, in this public image, is a sign of this struggle, for it must serve to speak as loudly as her lack of arms always does. Yet the problem is already apparent; for to encompass her whole in an image that must excise her sublimated trauma, that trauma must be present, and it is; but its presence subsumes the paintings voice virtue of its entire production; its imagery and style, her technique. This paradox, she is yet unable to resolve.
That is not to say, however, that this image is not supremely powerful. The confused and jumbled physiognomies crowd together within a dangerous, confining space, their gesticulation, expression, and mutated appendages threatening the viewer with dismemberment and castration. Noses, feet (lots of feet), torsos, breasts, faces, and elbows make a raucous crowd, a melee of Daliesque shapes whose crudeness—they are painted with blocks of colour as if from a fauve canvas, but the colours and pairings are definitively un-fauve, rendered with a sort of eerie cohesiveness like Matta’s “dream colours” and finished off with tacheist impasto—makes them reminiscent of a primitive expression of self . Eyes populate the canvas, both accusing us and claiming our wholeness virtue of their role as witnesses—witness to the trauma and horror of the disability the artist suffers, the appendages she lacks despite the wild proliferation of them here. It is indeed of note that, despite the many body parts we see (even elbows and torsos being visible) we do not see any hands or arms with the exception of a massive thumb and phallic forefinger rising from the bottom of the image.
There is a narrative procession of abstracted forms similar to in Gorky’s work. We pass over shapes evoking castration, such as the looming finger and the closed eye, disassociating forms of self-identification (like the man with a goldfish fused to his head) as well as obviously labeled sexual acts which segue dramatically into scenes of alienation brought about by the artists disability and corresponding passiveness. A progression of colour leads us from rather muted fleshy tones into an inflamed, caustic scheme, as if signifying a climax of suffering and pain, inverting the sexual metaphor that underpins the narrative. Throughout this we are reminded of another duality within Rin, which is the castration anxiety occupying her thoughts—clearly in opposition to her female gender, no? This contrast is perhaps more easily reconciled virtue of her dominant gesturality as an artist picking up a brush (another paradox, the brush’s role-value as phallic prosthesis curbed by her use of feet, a direct result of her disability). However it still remains as an important polarity through which Rins search for identity is carried out. The arms and hands, in performing actions and articulating the world around you are clear manifestations of the will to power that is the corollary of the intact phallic member, or in other words, bodily wholeness. While the ideal of wholeness is arguably unachievable for anyone, there is no disputing the fact that its opposite; dismemberment and dissolution, has left its lasting imprint on Rins body.
Ultimately, while “No Idea” is a product of Rins search for identity, its reading as such is still dependent on the forces of a larger, external narrative and thus it arrives at no successful conclusions within itself, remaining ambivalent to the end. Rather, it places us in the position of the artist, face to face with Rins bodily and metaphysical incompleteness. The trauma that seethes on the surface of this painting is not pretty, and it takes a massive amount of strength to resist its cacophonous, dismembering pull. The injury whose definition Rin resists still reigns supreme, and the tautological crisis of representation mentioned earlier (Rins identity must be distinct from her disability without simply disavowing it) means that this painting does not move forwards: it is static and one-sided. Neither does it excise trauma; rather, it reinforces it.
Basically, I was wondering what you think Rins paintings mean, and if anyone knows their art history (I don't) if the influences the person below talks about are more or less correct. I wonder how the artists who were in charge of actually making the art for Rin tackled the challenge of trying to paint images as if they were in her position. Especially since it seems like a really important factor for her character.
Although abstracted, there is nonetheless a great deal of clear figuration within Rin’s “No Idea”. The thick-bordered figures furthermore stand in front of a clearly delimited background, which alternates from a murky blue to a light beige but is always consistent in colour. The illusionistic depth within which the figure-ground relationship is executed makes this image reminiscent of a Surrealist dream landscape, albeit a highly syncretized one, borrowing elements of fantastical, anatomical forms from Salvador Dali, colour from Roberto Matta, and narrative from Arshile Gorky. And the sheer oppressiveness of the multitude of figures that crowd the image plane perhaps even evokes the labyrinthine drama of Dorothea Tanning. However, the public and explicit nature of its medium (muralism) and the intensely autographic mode of production (painting with the feet) brings us closer to the ideals of Abstract Expressionism, with its emphasis on a communicative, apolitical (yet ironically public) gesture. Here I will argue that “No Idea”, a poignant, yet failed neo-Surrealist oeuvre that borrows themes of Abstract Expressionist production, creates an ambivalent statement about Rins identity and her corresponding search for identification in the face of her disability.
The piece speaks with a confessional intimacy that immediately seems to contradict the large scale and public spectrum of the mural. This contrast is similar in nature to the dynamic of Rin’s search for identity: although she does not say so explicitly, the paintings imagery makes it clear that she is in constant struggle with the overwhelming presence of her disability, a looming force which threatens to eclipse any form of conscious identity she might otherwise assume. In other words, her identity is based on the polarity of her castrative disability and the artistic expression with which she escapes that trauma. That she speaks so loudly here, in this public image, is a sign of this struggle, for it must serve to speak as loudly as her lack of arms always does. Yet the problem is already apparent; for to encompass her whole in an image that must excise her sublimated trauma, that trauma must be present, and it is; but its presence subsumes the paintings voice virtue of its entire production; its imagery and style, her technique. This paradox, she is yet unable to resolve.
That is not to say, however, that this image is not supremely powerful. The confused and jumbled physiognomies crowd together within a dangerous, confining space, their gesticulation, expression, and mutated appendages threatening the viewer with dismemberment and castration. Noses, feet (lots of feet), torsos, breasts, faces, and elbows make a raucous crowd, a melee of Daliesque shapes whose crudeness—they are painted with blocks of colour as if from a fauve canvas, but the colours and pairings are definitively un-fauve, rendered with a sort of eerie cohesiveness like Matta’s “dream colours” and finished off with tacheist impasto—makes them reminiscent of a primitive expression of self . Eyes populate the canvas, both accusing us and claiming our wholeness virtue of their role as witnesses—witness to the trauma and horror of the disability the artist suffers, the appendages she lacks despite the wild proliferation of them here. It is indeed of note that, despite the many body parts we see (even elbows and torsos being visible) we do not see any hands or arms with the exception of a massive thumb and phallic forefinger rising from the bottom of the image.
There is a narrative procession of abstracted forms similar to in Gorky’s work. We pass over shapes evoking castration, such as the looming finger and the closed eye, disassociating forms of self-identification (like the man with a goldfish fused to his head) as well as obviously labeled sexual acts which segue dramatically into scenes of alienation brought about by the artists disability and corresponding passiveness. A progression of colour leads us from rather muted fleshy tones into an inflamed, caustic scheme, as if signifying a climax of suffering and pain, inverting the sexual metaphor that underpins the narrative. Throughout this we are reminded of another duality within Rin, which is the castration anxiety occupying her thoughts—clearly in opposition to her female gender, no? This contrast is perhaps more easily reconciled virtue of her dominant gesturality as an artist picking up a brush (another paradox, the brush’s role-value as phallic prosthesis curbed by her use of feet, a direct result of her disability). However it still remains as an important polarity through which Rins search for identity is carried out. The arms and hands, in performing actions and articulating the world around you are clear manifestations of the will to power that is the corollary of the intact phallic member, or in other words, bodily wholeness. While the ideal of wholeness is arguably unachievable for anyone, there is no disputing the fact that its opposite; dismemberment and dissolution, has left its lasting imprint on Rins body.
Ultimately, while “No Idea” is a product of Rins search for identity, its reading as such is still dependent on the forces of a larger, external narrative and thus it arrives at no successful conclusions within itself, remaining ambivalent to the end. Rather, it places us in the position of the artist, face to face with Rins bodily and metaphysical incompleteness. The trauma that seethes on the surface of this painting is not pretty, and it takes a massive amount of strength to resist its cacophonous, dismembering pull. The injury whose definition Rin resists still reigns supreme, and the tautological crisis of representation mentioned earlier (Rins identity must be distinct from her disability without simply disavowing it) means that this painting does not move forwards: it is static and one-sided. Neither does it excise trauma; rather, it reinforces it.
