A phenomenological study of the body and its representations in painting

Abstract

This research originates in my practice as a painter and teacher of life drawing; and seeks to question whether the figurative nude in painting is unfinished business. Being a practising artist and not an academic, has influenced both my methodology and the relationship between practice and theory. Reading, visual practice, writing, and the analysis of other artists' work, all stimulate and inform each other; with the result that practice and theory have equal weight, neither being an illustration of the other. These dual concerns are not unified in one investigation but have developed as interdependent parallel strands. The practical element is a search to find strategies for painting the figurative nude, which can stimulate a sense of a corporeal body for the viewer. This theoretical investigation is an examination of the nature and structure of realism, its hermeneutical association with the viewer and its position in relation to the Kantian sublime.