Reflections on invention in domestic-history painting
‘The artist begs the public to be indulgent, because [s]he has neither imitated other works nor even used studies from nature. The imitation of nature is as difficult as it is admirable, if it is really perfect. But an artists may also, surely remove [herself] entirely from nature and depict forms of movements which to this day have only existed in the imagination…Painting, like poetry, selects from the universe whatever it considers most suitable for its purpose. ….Thanks to this creative combination the artist ceases to be a mere copyist and acquires the title of an inventor’
Francisco Goya (preface for Los Caprichos) -with gender change
Goya’s words perfectly sums up the way in which it is possible for artist’s to capture something of everyday realities without sitting down to draw them mimetically. We all know how people look, how they move, what motivates them and the things they do every day. Domestic, caring and everyday acts make unusual ‘grand narratives’. Indeed housework and homework are rarely the subjects of art despite feminist art projects since the 70s. But has that changed since we are all stuck at home in lockdown?
Making paint tell stories - and domestic stories that, involves inventing something and making people look again. A gesture, an unusual combination, maybe something dark even funny all involve imagining and selecting what might ‘hold’ a story and evoke empathy and something of authentic every day life.
As my technical ability to drip bitumen has improved over the last 15 years, I can manage multiple figures and surprising detail on large canvases that I thought I would never manage. Inventing and combining historical painting references, that I now think of as domestic-history paintings, inventing all kinds of figures engaged in everyday stories of caring for others – here small children, mothers, babies, families all using technology, tellies, computers and phones.
‘Encased in a new silence’ (80x100x4cm, bitumen and oil on canvas, 2019) was intended to explore how technology impinges on our domestic lives and disconnecting us from our families and putting more pressure on home workers, mothers and carers to be perfect. In Western culture, if being at home caring for others wasn’t lowly and isolating enough, there was proof that technology and social media made them feel even more guilty and isolated.
How things change. Who could have known that technology would be our saviour during COVID-19 pandemic? Is it possible now that everyone is stuck at home, that people have a greater appreciation of home workers? That we are beginning to have a new respect for care – and for low paid carers?
Continuing to paint at home during lockdown has been about continuing narrative figurative painting that re-invents our lived experiences, and smuggles in extra meanings; about the value of caring for others; recognising as a culture that we need to give mothers, parents and carers greater allowance and respect.
Painting is the potential to re-order and ‘version’ events infinitely – ad-infinitum. It’s about story telling through paint, colour, movement and composition. During the lockdown friends told me about their lives and wrote descriptions that evoke images that somehow summarise all of our experiences in some way. These visual story texts have become tiny watercolours (15x18cm) that have proved popular. I love being sent people’s stories and sending out in return a 'lockdown story' watercolour in the post.
Stories are the process by which we become human. They are the building blocks personal and communal memory. They write history, and opens history to the voices of all of us. History is not a question of facts alone, and my larger ‘history paintings’ with all their literal, invented and imagined references create history in the process of it’s telling.
