Lee, Jin Han; (2021) Painting as a Language for Subjective Understanding. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

Abstract

This thesis discusses the development of my painting practice in relation to disparate encounters, among them struggles with language, adventures with novels and engagement with theory. The focus is less on a direct formal analysis of my paintings and more on the different experiences that have compelled their making. This thesis begins with a discussion of the central concept of ekphrasis—understood as ‘the art of describing works of art’ or ‘the verbal representation of visual representation’—but shifts quickly to different modes of writing and verbal representations of other experiences. Here, I describe my paintings in a different, less direct way; I attempt to illuminate my paintings and the formal decisions that went into them by shining a light on other phenomena or experiences. In so doing, I suggest that a painting is like a multi-layered text, full of different stories, motifs and references. There is no one way to access a painting; it does not have a single, objective meaning that should be ‘understood’ by the viewer. Instead it is conceived as a text incorporating a multitude of different stories, entry points and references, which can be combined by the viewer in their own, subjective way. This conception of the artwork—underpinned by Julia Kristeva’s concepts of ‘intertextuality’ and ‘intersubjectivity’, discussed in this thesis’ second appendix—has also informed my hyper-text project Your, My and Our Dictionaries. Within it, I attempt to diversify the language of today, proposing means by which writing, as an aesthetic practice, might consider the definition, role and boundary of painting.

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