Becoming surface: Painting and vagueness

Virgoe, April ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5021-2816 (2027) Becoming surface: Painting and vagueness. In: Routledge Companion to Contemporary Painting. Routledge/CRC press. ISBN 9781041008521 (In Press)

Abstract

Surface in painting conventionally denotes a final layer of paint, the completion of a process of painting and the arrival at a pictorial conclusion. In defining exactly where surface is, however, there are experiential aspects of encounter to be taken into consideration. This chapter employs existing theories of vagueness, along with Hubert Damisch’s definition of painting as ‘thickness’, to construct an account of surface as a spatially vague terrain, and as one that remains in the process of becoming rather than concluding. A close consideration of the work of American painter Jack Whitten reveals perceptually-driven painterly strategies that unsettle notions of where surface is. In the spatially intertwined thickness of the painted surface, inside, outside and underneath are open and mobile definitions. For the beholder, surface is encountered as a form of vagueness.

Actions (login required)

Edit Item Edit Item