Tracing the minor gesture in painting: a shift from reflection to diffraction

ABSTRACT

It is commonly assumed that we come to know the world best by observing it and that innovation is a human centred phenomenon. However, the objective of this review is to synthesise literature that emphasises the under examined, yet crucial, role that materials and tools exert in generating embodied perception; a diffractive pattern experienced as a passage of intensity sensed in the body of the painter when interacting with the material aspects of painting. Drawing on new materialist philosophies, recent creative practice research and the practices of three contemporary painters: Bracha Ettinger, Jude Rae and Paul Ching-Bor, this review examines how this complex phenomenon, known as the ‘minor gesture’, occurs in the painting process. It concludes that common painting strategies activate this phenomenon and demonstrates that innovation has its origin, not only in the intentional acts of the painter, but also in embodiment during the painting process.

KEYWORDS:

• Painting
• minor gesture
• diffraction
• new materialism
• embodied perception
• creative practice research

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their invaluable comments to a previous version of this manuscript. My warm thanks go to Emeritus Professor Donna Lee Brien, Dr Judith Brown, Dr Matthew Bannister and Grant Matheson for being critical readers and discussants.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sarah Munro

Sarah Munro works in Hamilton, New Zealand as a studio-based figurative painter. Currently undertaking a practice-led PhD, her research investigates how embodied movement and perception activates new ways of thinking, seeing, and making paintings. As well as engaged in full-time research, she is employed as a post graduate external supervisor in the School of Media Arts at Waikato Institute of Technology in New Zealand supervising post graduate painting projects and teaching art theory.