Initial questions raised:
Biological Layer
- How can we better understand how the body behaves and reacts when its boundaries and defence mechanisms are compromised?
- Is it possible to visually represent these characteristics from an internal perspective of the body in relation to visual art?
Psychological Layer
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Can the feelings of an individual whose bodily defences and boundaries are disrupted be artistically expressed?
Social Layer
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How can the position of an individual facing such challenges be captured?
Place of observation
The project is driven by the overarching sense that the severity of skin diseases is often underestimated, and medical conclusions may not always align with the patient's ongoing evaluation of their condition. It is rooted in personal experience with atopy (a combination of atopic eczema, allergies, and asthma).
Such a body is perceived through the perspective of an afflicted, attacked body in a state of constant defence. This realization emerges during the process as a kind of life setting that permeates the entire personality.
The body is not viewed in a dual relationship with the self. Nevertheless, a distancing and reconciling of these structural components can be observed, depending on the individual's identification with or suppression of their current state.
The scope of the work balances between medical illustration, abstract art, and the untrained art of art brut. The aim is to create visual representations that enhance self-awareness of this issue.
Boundaries
“It is typical of human needs to establish artificial boundaries that render physical phenomena discontinuous, just as we are discrete – discontinuous – ourselves: entities bounded by our surface.”
(Lakoff & Johnson, 2002, p. 39)[1]
The skin is generally considered the most fundamental physical boundary, separating the internal environment from the external. It serves as both a protective barrier and a sensory interface, regulating what enters or exits in relation to its surroundings. Concepts of the skin's function and properties have evolved alongside historical discourses in science and art. Thus, we can trace notions of the skin as a covering, a membrane, identity, and other concepts.
When observed closely, the boundaries of our body dissolve, leading us into a realm where dynamic changes, interactions, movements, and exchanges of information occur on multiple levels.
At a psychological level, boundaries in relation to bodily autonomy pertain to personal integrity. This integrity can be significantly threatened by the manifestations of skin afflictions. Feelings such as helplessness, compounded by increasing torment, can lead to distorted self-evaluation, negative reactions, and rejection by others.
At a social level, boundaries are linked to conventions and stereotypes about how the body is presented. The body then becomes a political tool, representing and conforming to boundaries defined by etiquette or law. As a silhouette, it can serve as a tool for aesthetic pleasure, a symbol, an icon, or an idol.
Metaphor
The metaphorical translation of phenomena into signs plays a fundamental role in the creation of the personal artistic system in this work. A sign can be a graphic element, but also a used shade of a painterly gesture or the blending of colors into one another.
“…what we call ‘direct physical experience takes place on an immensely vast backdrop of cultural presuppositions.” (Lakoff & Johnson, 2002, p. 75).[2]
For the last five days, I’ve been struggling with eczema.
I’ve got an infection there.
I’m not feeling like myself.
This sweater is itching me.
It stings there.
On the level of the metaphorical description of one’s health condition and the potential treatment of illness, one can observe the basic pillars of the Western culture’s approach to health.
Sign
Capturing manifestations on the skin through a personal sign system makes it possible to describe subjective experiences with the body in their uniqueness. This creates a dynamic system open to changes and transformations.
This system naturally absorbs elements from other systems that are known and accessible. This basis can be found, for example, in the fields of physics, art brut, and often leads into esotericism. Among the signs, we find various forms of arrows, triangles, and waves. However, they enter into new configurations with elements that, at a basic level, stem from the metaphorical translation of phenomena.
Structuring/restructuring
In the process of time-lapse drawings, initial records of phenomena affecting damaged skin emerge, which can be further examined independently in the following steps. In the spirit of a comprehensive understanding of health issues, it is necessary to subsequently place these details into higher frameworks, more complex images that approach the multilayered reality of the patient's experiences.
The method of deconstruction does not aim to achieve non-figurative creation but to find ways to grasp this phenomenon realistically and to convey this information further.
[1] Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (2002). Metaphors we live by (M. Čejka, Trans.). Praha: Host. (Original work published 1980). p. 39. ISBN 80-7294-071-6.
[2] Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (2002). Metaphors we live by (M. Čejka, Trans.). Praha: Host. (Original work published 1980). p. 75. ISBN 80-7294-071-6.