Introduction 

The Justification for a relational Satire within contemporary painting, championing alter modernism's creolized, archipelagic direction, describes the direction of this script and practice project. The project brings together a unique set of personal and professional life experiences, informing a reflection on my life’s ethos, and guides my practice direction. I possess a strong social conscience and a deep concern for human rights and contentedness.  As a practising painter, I use satirical imagery to apportion strength of focus to elicit effective codices of truths. Satire's codification assists me in creating a structured method representing the unique homo-viator experience. My experiences recollected through painting combine with my impressions, ideas and beliefs while surveying the social context of conflicted ideologies. My personal and professional ethos incorporates egalitarian principles. Everyone is equal, Art (painting) is for everyone, not just an elite few. In this respect, the aim of my work is accessibility, my paintings promote my goal of an egalitarian and just society that offers accessible visual encapsulations of this vision. My painting practice offers a Critique of the history of inhumanity—the absurdity and dysfunction of the human condition, and its multinational, multicultural, systems. Perma crisis describes a world of system dysfunction.  Defined as an extended period of instability and insecurity, and illustrated through dysfunctional World politics, multi-societal inequalities, and injustices. A constant state of uncertainty and worry, through the upheaval caused by Brexit, high energy costs, a universal cost of living crisis, world poverty, the covid pandemic, climate change, world societal displacement, and heightened migration. The world has transitioned from a post-war state to a pre-war state, nuclear threat is ever more apparent. Bad news is seemingly everywhere, this is the milieu in which satire exists. Contemporary Satire has great viability and impetus within a society that is estranged from itself. In times of high insecurity, anger at social inequalities, and the general public's apparent disillusionment of the power elite, has enabled a revived focus on humour and satire, to express public opinion, and assisting to appease anger and frustration. Painting’s Solemnity has a universal appeal; satire is a vehicle for respondent discourse, contextually, this assists me in rationalizing the development of the making and showing dimensions of my practice.

The universal Language of satire is consumed daily through the glut of mass media. My exploration aims to clarify fundamental formal and abstract notions of the nature, function, and satire’s significance within its pluralistic complexity. To realize these aims, I introduce and develop methodological frameworks to clarify concepts related to Satire that focus less on advocating that it changes individual and world opinion, and more on how the world endures dysfunctionality through satire. To substantiate contemporary relevance within my investigation, I focus on present-day satire (post 1970) which is universally understood and accepted. My corpus also reflects the historical and cultural bias of satire within world demographics. I explore satire through it's censoriousness; Morality, justice, and ethical implications. I outline satire as social and political commentary, its mechanisms through vocation and genre, and its status as an opponent to pseudo-satire through reification. The cognitive value of satire will be explored through the lens of Critique and humour, suggesting Satire’s cathartic intervention. Satire and the autoethnographic painter will be related to political Satire; I am not a satirist; I utilize the universal codes of satire to illicit strength of meaning within universally understood parameters. The themes of my practice will involve inequality, inhumanity, the power elite, war, societal critique, disproportionate wealth, abuse, political oppression and economic exploitation. My project seeks to address the scarcity of satire within the specificity of contemporary painting, the framework of curational practice, and within the ecology of the art world, in doing so, I extend the scope of a renewed engagement with painting’s specificity within the 21st Century. Satire is circumscribed by a limited understanding of the media in which it can be realised. There is an assumption that Satire only exists through political cartooning, comedy, and amateur memes. I argue that painting’s solemnity affords a greater capacity to positively affect individuals and societies, above and beyond contemporary multimedia. My project frames painting practice as fitting in relation to our erratic times as it intrinsically holds within it, abundant possibilities for examining feelings of change and variance, expressively, materially, and idiomatically. Painting's solemnity experience offers emotive responses, through aesthetic judgements, immediately connected with feelings of pleasure and displeasure. A painting's intrinsic value underlies its status as a precious object. Painting is a high art, a universal art, a liberal art, an art through which reviewers may achieve transcendence through catharsis. The expressive warmth and subjectivity of painting are opposed to the cold functionality of pseudo-satire; the digital image, serving primarily as a vehicle of information dissemination. My research has quantified a broad spectrum of the history of painting and its contemporary relevance. My focus on painting from the late 1960’s will coincide with a histrionic change of painting’s resurgence after postmodernism, coinciding with Greenbergian formalism.  I will discuss painting’s intrinsic value of accessibility, readability, and relationality through semiotic sign systems. Painting as autoethnography will offer justification, validity and credibility for my argument. An autonomous, Homo viator utilizes self-reflection, to explore anecdotal and personal experience. Auto ethnographers understand that personal experience is infused with political/cultural norms and expectations, they engage in rigorous self-reflection, to identify and interrogate the intersections between the self, others, and an individual's unique social life. I utilize the signs and codes of satire to illicit strength of meaning within my work; parody, analogy, metaphor, subversion, irony, and universally recognized signs, icons, and graphics, will be utilized to inject a powerful means of communication. My work encompasses the universality of humour, through comical characterization, a focus on primary colours to accentuate a ‘cartoon’ aesthetic, and design principles such as space, perspective, perceived motion, and depth to create a satirical narrative.  My research will question painting’s relation to the receiver of the work through individual factors that may influence aesthetic image judgement. 

Alter modernity has been denied valuable traction since its conception. Its uptake has been limited and problematized, not least because of the Postmodern-Alter modern disjuncture. I will relate auto-ethnographic principles to alter modernism by describing the boundaries of cultural reification: Levelling-up remains an integral part of the current UK government's policy agenda. On being situated within the northern quadrant of the United Kingdom, I recognize the correlation between a levelling-up of the north-south divide, and the protagonism of alter modernities' creolized archipelago. I will further support my argument by expounding upon trans-culturalism and universal semiotic sign systems, assisting to legitimize alter modernism’s relationality. The universal relationality of alter modernity conflicts with postmodernism’s colonial West centricity. I will discuss the disjuncture between the universalism of alter modernism, and the relativism of postmodernism, and advocatealter modernism’s moralpurpose as a catalyst for change. Alter modernism advocates for universal certainties and truths. Conversely, Postmodernism negates and problematizes allegory and the auspices of authorial practice. The Conflicting traditions of satire assume a coherent social field; however, Postmodernism assumes that all social positions are fragmented, which fails to address the issue. Alter modernity as an epoch where contextual/relational dependency of meaning has congealed into units of oppositional ideology, a world of hardened attitudes and threatened identities attempting to navigate a world in Perma crisis, currently underdeveloped, satire needs to be rethought in this context. An explanation is requiredin relation to relativism in contrast with universalism, I will discuss this through the alter modernism lens of enlightenment, and ethnocentrism,a dialogical approach, emphasizing an ethical disposition. 

The Autoethnographic satirical painter 

Through auto-ethnographic practice painters develop works that contextualize subjective experiences and frame them at the junctures of social relations. Self-agency enables personal life reflection. Autoethnographic projects use selfhood, subjectivity, and personal experience to describe, interpret and represent beliefs" (Adams, T.E. Herrmann, A.F. 2020 pp. 1–8,) The practice of the self-portrait is empowering, and meaningful. It necessitates looking inside oneself. “To work in an inner world as a way of deepening unique creative processes, to begin a dialogue between our thinking mind and our ‘gut’ to draw from an inexhaustible source of meanings which must be expressed.” (Nunez. C 2009 p51–6) Satire relates to auto ethnographic practice through symbolic interludes: The format of painting offers auto ethnographers the possibility of analysis and evocation. Self and society exist ‘sous rature’ and in difference from each other, thus making autoethnographic artwork a useful tool for symbolic interaction. (Rambo, C. 2017) Self-portraiture enacts an auto ethnographic practice transferable to multicultures as procuring universal allegorical references. Artists throughout history have produced portraits of themselves. Contemporary painters continue the tradition apportioning great emphasis to their persona and their place in space and time, often provoking a comically satirical portrayal: “Self-portraits of Catalan, Kelley, Kippenberger, Creed, Currin, and Holler, construct a sense of persona in their work which is often mocking and self-depreciating, the cruel prankster (Catalan), the angry adolescent (Kelley), the maudlin drunk (Kippenberger), the agonizer (Creed), the womanizer (Currin), the maligned scientist (Holler).” (Farquharson, Landers 2004. Cited in Higgiepp.129-196)