Gesture of Shift

My coresidents wrote the first things that came into their minds when given the four Brechtian prompts discussed  in the previous entry. Writing about an image of themselves- not a photo but the more extracted likeness that is a painting- and writing in the third person was an exercise in accessing a degree of objectivity in thinking about one’s self.

I gratefully took their words, typed them up in various fonts, and printed out the text. The printouts were attached to the cradled panel surface where their initial image was already painted and then covered with a slippery, polymer substrate called yupo paper. This paper is somewhat translucent and allows me to see the text underneath while I manipulate the oil paint in a way that smudges and gives a sense of erasure. Tedious to paint, but enjoyable in an oddly meditative way.

Each subject then  posed for me in a way that best reflected the instructions they’d  given themselves in their writing and which incorporated the new mindset they were seeking to supplant the old, stuck one.

And lastly, each looked at the painted  images and text as a whole and reflected. The last prompt was to come up with a gesture that bridged and connected the first image of themselves to the last- a gesture of shift.

Each covered their hands in kneadable graphite and, in one fluid move, performed the gesture on a piece of Mylar. Here, a video of playwright  Laura Collins making her final mark: