ETD Collection

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/104


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Author: search.filters.author.Webster, Jessica

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    Approaching trauma: South African painting through Kant, Greenberg and Lacan
    (2017) Webster, Jessica
    The aim of this thesis is to consider a concept of trauma which may offer support for the contemporary interest in and practice of painting. Jacques Lacan’s (1959-1960) structural and abstract articulations of trauma as das Ding is the central framework for the trajectory and form of the research and writing in this thesis. Lacan’s seminar on das Ding develops the notion that philosophical and social functions of art are aimed at structuring the traumatic and tragic sphere of experience. Das Ding is a hypothetical construct that resonates with Kant’s epistemological, moral and aesthetic philosophy. Primarily, I see the historical framework of das Ding as foregrounding a certain ‘ethics’ in my approach to painting and its interpretation. Kant’s own emphasis on the communicability art may offer is key to this thesis. His focus is not on interpretation as an act eliciting direct meaning from representations in art, but frames the potential for humane interaction: for how a consideration of the perception of beauty and the form of the cognitions that arise in private and public spheres may lay the groundwork for thinking about communicability in general. Through the lens of das Ding, I suggest that an emphasis on aspects of non objective, non-communicable elements of making and experiencing painting is a viable way of contemplating both its pleasures and, often, its more painful effects. I contend that the displacement of meaning enabled by conceptualising the structural implications of trauma, in theory and in the practice of painting, may sustain a quiet yet significant social position in the wider sphere of intellectual activity and pursuits.
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    Trauma as a borderland concept in contemporary South African painting
    (2010-08-25) Webster, Jessica
    Abstract In this report I explore trauma as a concept in contemporary painting. I interpret certain South African paintings that assert the affective dimension of the painted surface as particularly compelling manifestations of a concept of trauma. I frame my discussion in terms of Mark Seltzer’s (1997:5) theory of trauma as a ‘borderland concept’. I see Seltzer’s concept as analogous to certain formal values these South African paintings deploy in relation to the painted surface, primarily the tension between materiality and iconography, form and formlessness, figure and ground and surface and depth. I draw on aspects of psychoanalytic theory and discourses on contemporary painting to support my discussion. I analyze selected paintings by Marlene Dumas and Penny Siopis within this framework. I also discuss my own paintings and Masters exhibition as pertaining to a concept of trauma. I argue that trauma as a borderland concept offers a means of appraising contemporary painting in a way that resists an overly semantic or purely perceptual interpretation.