Research Proposal

Research proposal:

Karen Covic 20240711 (Masters of Fine Art)

Project Title:

Unravelling a Feminine Line: The Art of Undoing, Reclaiming, and Redefining Feminine Expression.

 

My enquiry explores painting and its legacies within the formalist histories of abstraction, reframed as a textile surface for acts of unravelling, unpicking, or undoing a stitch, a pattern, or a weave. I am questioning whether the very act of unravelling can be seen as a feminist act. What does it mean to deconstruct or to undo, if there is a grid or presubscribed pattern? How might this work as a way of reworking lost female narratives within art discourse?

 

One of the central questions of my research revolves around whether unravelling, unpicking, or unmaking can be understood as a feminist act. Responding to Helene Cixous’s essay “The Laugh of the Medusa,” where she calls for women to write themselves back into the narrative of (art) history, I wonder whether first there needs to be an unravelling of the preconceived ideas of what it is to be feminine and a woman artist. The histories have always been there, she argues, but written in white ink – barely visible but there. I will explore the idea of making visible and obscuring in my artwork and look to contemporary female artists to observe how they have responded to these calls from feminist writings.

 

Artists like Judy Millar, whose process has been described as ‘painting backwards’ and likened to the mythological figure of Penelope with her weaving and unravelling, are central to the conceptual motives for this enquiry. Millar’s approach to painting where she adds layers and then removes them, echoes the cyclic and labour-intensive work of women artists who have historically been ignored or marginalised. The tension between the act of making and unmaking invites me to ask: what are we delaying through this repetitive action? And in the action of painting backwards, are we as female artists, writing ourselves back into art history by first revealing those preconceptions?

 

I observe how artists such as Ghada Amer, Tracey Emin and Louise Bourgeois have brought the needle and thread into their practice as a tool for feminist discourse, challenging ideas of painting and conventions of the fine arts. Bourgeois describes the magic power of the needle, where a needle is used to repair damage. “It’s a claim to forgiveness. It is never aggressive; It’s not a pin.” After the unravelling, is there opportunity to rework the pattern? To repair, to renew, to redefine?

 

This is a process-led practice, where I experiment with a combination of materials, such as paint, pastel, and charcoal to disrupt and dismantle the pattern or grid. I begin by staining unstretched canvas with ink, dye, or paint. From there, I introduce a loose grid structure to reference both the warp and weft of tapestry looms and Mondrian’s grids in the early Modernist movement and their patriarchal, rationalist associations.  In contradiction, I work against the grid with gestural marks using pastel and paint juxtaposing the style of the female Abstract Expressionists with the early Modernists. I apply stitch, loose threads and text by hand or with machine to form part of a dialogue. The text will reference texts that I have read in my extended reading. The addition of fabric, is either partial to recall Penelope’s shroud or completely obscuring. The action of overlaying cloth onto a pre-existing painting is acting out how female art was marginalised and ignored.

 

Questions:

·      Can the very act of unravelling be seen as a feminist act?

·      After unravelling is there opportunity to rework the patttern?

·      What is being delayed by reworking through layers?

·      Is the action of ‘painting backwards’ an attempt to write women back into art history by first stripping bare misconceptions?

Bibliography:

  • Duffy, Carol Ann. The World’s Wife: Poems. Macmillan, 2001.

  • Henderson, P. L. Unravelling Women’s Art. Supernova Books, 2021.

  • Hessel, Katy. The Story of Art Without Men. W. W. Norton & Company, 2023.

  • Michael Lett. Documents. 1st ed. Auckland, AUK, New Zealand: Michael Lett, 2023.

  • Parker, Rozsika. The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine. Women’s Press (UK), 1984.

  • Reilly, Maura, and Ghada Amer. Ghada Amer. Gregory R. Miller & Co., 2010.

Research ProposalKaren Covic