Anodyne
Thursday, December 06, 2012
 

Christopher Brayshaw, La Cinega, 2011

Three theses:

1. The demand that a work of representational art -- a painting or photograph -- resemble something confuses the work's ostensible subject(s) with the work's own autonomy as a thing-in-the-world.

2.  There is no such thing as a single "subject" in painting or photography.  The tree's scarred trunk is no more the subject of my picture than the little green leaf in the foreground, or the rock and the nail and the weeds, or the cracked pavement beside the trunk, or the window's reflection in the deep shadow below the brickwork, or the security gate's beautiful iron curlicues, or the deeply slanted space at upper left.  All of these things are equal.  All of them have meaning.

3. If ever in doubt about one of my pictures, it's probably a self-portrait.  Even the reenactments.
- posted by cjb @ 8:56 PM


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