The Painting within the Object
A yellow belt threads in and out of the surface of a small painting, momentarily disappearing from view as it passes through cuts in the canvas to the space behind. Reappearing at a new point on the surface it becomes part of the image again and yet simultaneously disrupts it by blurring the distinction between two and three dimensions. Slowly, commonalities between found object and painting are revealed. The triangular shaped incisions on the painting’s surface share a similarity of form with the pattern of small diamond-shaped holes on the belt. The curved line of a plant motif, repeatedly painted across the yellow ground, echoes the looping forms of the belt. Other associations are brought to mind. The cuts in the canvas feel inextricably linked to Fontana’s Spatial Concept works whereas the retro feel of the belt alludes to the fashion of the 1960’s or 70’s. Belt (2014) by the artist Lisa Penny, is an example of painting as ‘hybrid’, where found object is reconfigured with the materiality of painting to make a new object, a new version of painting.
Another example of this hybridity can be found in Pure Instinct (2013). Here a pink T-shirt has been pulled upwards and over the lower half of a canvas. Two clips at the bottom hold it in place, whilst two strips of ribbon attached to the T-shirt’s lower edge run centrally to the top of the painting in a V-shape. The exposed section at the top of the canvas has been painted with small brush marks in varying pink and orange shades recalling an earlier period of painting’s history. The inverted shape of the T-shirt and ribbon, both flattened against the surface, inadvertently creates a strong composition. Contrasting areas of colour and shape interact, but the unlikely juxtaposition of the T-shirt with the painted canvas feels comedic. Penny obviously finds pleasure in mischievously introducing a brash item of clothing into the serious language of abstract painting. However it would be wrong to suggest that her work is solely concerned with creating visual jokes or treating painting with a casual irreverence. Beyond the implied humour in her work there exists a greater awareness of the relative cultural value of objects, their physical and conceptual properties and how these then affect, or are affected by, the context of painting. There is a genuine attempt to disrupt conventional norms and explore beyond the very parameters that define and perhaps limit our ideas of what painting can be. Penny wants to go further by offering up new configurations in which painting can be revealed. However, the act of dismantling a canvas and reconfiguring it often comes close to assemblage or wall based sculpture. When does painting cease to exist and become something else? Painting is no longer simply synonymous with a flat picture plane hung on a wall or tied to a specific medium. It has moved away from a being a clearly defined practice. However, traditionally the predominant shape that painting has inhabited is that of the rectangle. It is a shape that we tend to associate with flat images. In Penny’s work it is a both a visual and a conceptual boundary to push against and to break out of. It acts as a fulcrum from which everything may stray from yet ultimately relate back to. It is the continued presence of the rectangle that acts as a link to an established paradigm whilst at the same time defining a new one. This allows for an engaging tension to exist within her work.
In Lisa Penny’s practice the painting often exists beyond the recognisable format of the rectangular frame. In the painting Belt we perceive the form of the belt moving subtly outside the edge of the frame as it wraps itself around the painting’s edge. This visual idea is taken further in ‘Bi-Kini’ (2014), where a piece of canvas, cut and painted to resemble the top half of a bikini, hangs down from the left hand side of the stretcher. It passes over the lower corner and hangs down below the bottom edge, outside the frame. Where we usually expect the canvas to be, stretched across the central area, there is now just an empty space with the bare wall of the gallery revealed. Black paint has been hastily scumbled onto the yellow stained wooden stretcher. This feels more like an afterthought, placing the gestural activity of painting to the sidelines. The presence of the canvas appearing outside of the frame breaks the boundary that usually defines the area in which the image resides. Here image is absent, surface is absent and we are left with remnants. Yet the relationship between re-positioned canvas, exposed painted wood and framed empty space create a new whole, still appearing to us as image and as painting.
In Green Frame (2013) a green canvas, containing dark blue linear marks, has been cut from its stretcher and then cut once again into three strips. These strips have then been wrapped around the vertical bars of the frame. The exposed wood has been painted bright pink and orange, complimenting the emerald green of the canvas. A photographic fragment has been propped up on the lowest edge, the ambiguous forms in the photograph appear to be the source of the painting marks. In this painting everything is occurring on the edge, pulling our gaze outwards yet without leaving the central area redundant. As in ‘Bi-Kini’, the space and blank wall behind have become incorporated into the image. Our gaze flows back and forth between centre and edge. We move from painted canvas, to wooden frame, to blank wall and back to photographic fragment with the painting embracing actual space, between and beyond the painting’s exposed apparatus. In contrast to this we find large pieces of cloth stuck to the surface in The Dandy Walker (2014) where the found object protrudes outwards significantly. This demonstrates further that the work embraces layers of space and multiple surfaces, rather than just the narrow confines of painted surface and illusionistic space.
Penny reconfigures ordinary objects with the traditional apparatus of painting. One characteristic of painting is that it has traditionally pointed to the object or to the Real outside of itself through representation. There existed a clear demarcation between image, viewer and what was being represented. Modernism began to draw more and more attention to the painting as object, focussing on surface and flatness, eventually sacrificing image in the process. Painting gradually began to include the Ready-Made with Rauschenberg stating that ‘’a painting is more like the real world if it's made out of the real world,"(1) In Penny’s work things are taken further and perhaps we can view things differently. Rather than painting embracing the real, it’s more a question of painting’s existence beginning first and foremost within the found object, with the real becoming more like painting.
Dominic Kennedy 2014
1) Robert Rauschenberg. BrainyQuote.com http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/r/robertraus346570.html