The allegorical fold : evoking physical and psychological presence and absence in the painting of folded fabric

摘要

In this project notions of presence and absence will be explored through a study of 'the fold'. I will closely examine a number of paintings that depict folded drapery or cloth and from this examination I will select examples that evoke a response in me to these fundamental states of being, My objective is to produce a body of paintings that explore the structure of the fold and its expression through light, shadow and darkness to develop a range of images that metaphorically represent these phenomena and the possibility of a relational field between the two. This examination will re-present, reinterpret, fragment and transform the selected images using the materials of oil painting and drawing to visualize my response to the changing perceptions of this phenomenon. This investigation is informed by philosophical and psychoanalytical writings that explore the phenomenology of states of presence and absence. In part, these states are suggested by other terminologies, for example, form and space or volume and void. The project draws on the work of writers who have examined and changed perceptions of this phenomenon, particularly where they attribute the structure of absence to contribute to an understanding of subjectivity, question the favouring of presence in Western thought and explore the relationship between the two.