Overstepping the boundaries: notes on intimacy

ABSTRACT

This article considers intimacy, and the use of personal material to generate artwork and writing. It gives a first-hand account of drawing, in the author’s own practice as an artist, as a means to articulate acutely personal life experiences. Looking at both Luce Irigaray’s thoughts on intimacy as a singular space where one can meet oneself (rather than simply something shared between two), and ideas surrounding the space of the feminine, this article considers what is at stake when the borders of personal privacy are broken. Using the song lyrics of Joni Mitchell and writing by Anais Nin and Edna O’Brien as references, this article proposes a proximity between approaches to writing the feminine and the practice of drawing/painting. By allying the ways these referents have often been overlooked with attitudes to the feminine, this article defends the import of their output.

KEYWORDS:

• Drawing
• intimacy
• écriture feminine
• Irigaray
• Joni Mitchell

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Emma Talbot is an artist and academic at the Royal College of Art. Recent one person exhibitions include ‘Open Thoughts’, Neuer Aachener Kunstverein; ‘Stained With Marks of Love’, Arcadia Missa, NY; ‘Condo’, Arcadia Missa, London; ‘The World Blown Apart’, Galerie Onrust, Amsterdam; ‘Time After Time’, Petra Rinck Galerie, Düsseldorf; ‘Unravel These Knots’, Freud Museum, London. Her work is included in two Thames and Hudson publications: ‘Drawing People’ by Roger Malbert and ‘100 Painters of Tomorrow’ by Kurt Beers and is in the following collections: Saatchi, David Roberts Foundation, KRC Collection, the Netherlands, City of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, and Museum Arnhem, The Netherlands.

ORCID

Emma Talbot http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9280-4633