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Allison Kuehn / Artist Statement

“The modern man…relishes a lie, but it must not be too big; it must be so small that, although he knows in his inmost soul that it is not true, he can yet make himself believe it is not false.” —Clarence Darrow


The nature of the individual in history is extremely complex, and often provokes more questions than answers. What is it that makes a person significant? What is it that determines who will be remembered and who will be forgotten, and how do they relate to their own time and their own situation?


It is often easy to loose sight of the individual when surveying the thousands of years of written history, simply because of the incredible amount of information available, however it is the individual, whether influential or not, that allows history to become a reality, and that provides a connection and a constant over hundreds or thousands of years. My art is an exploration of the individual, specifically, my feelings and interpretations of those people that for various reasons have changed or affected my personal relationship with history. I have chosen the still life as my method of visual expression because it allows me to present biographical information in a way that does not visually reference the human figure. I am not concerned with creating a likeness. I want to present information, and an overall impression that has the potential to be overlooked with a figural work. History cannot be removed from societal perceptions; both past and present, but neither can the figure. By creating images that do not include the human form I am able to deemphasize past and present perceptions of beauty, which are not essential to understanding the motivations, surroundings and personalities of historical individuals or even people in general. In my art I am concerned with teasing out an impression of a life: gathering together pieces of information in the form of objects, and exploring that historical individual from an entirely subjective, personal point of view. When creating my work I focus on creating metaphorical connections through the objects I choose, while cultivating an intimate relationship between the viewer and my work, and creating complimentary pieces to provoke internal dialog between individual pieces.


My still lives are built using objects that represent an aspect of the life of an historical individual, and can include items that express personality traits, religious references and my own personal commentary. These objects are meant to imply more than just their physical appearance, and possess an inherent meaning that can be based on my interpretation of an object’s physical nature and intended use, or on predetermined religious, historical and cultural symbolism and iconography. When choosing objects I consider my knowledge of the person as well as the period of history in question, and I combine this with information I have gathered about various signs and symbols used throughout history and the world, with particular emphasis placed on the still life tradition, which Margit Rowell describes as “a closed semantic system generating and regenerating its own symbolism” (Objects of Desire, 19). In creating the two pieces illustrating the problems and conflicts of the successors of the Roman Empire, I called upon predetermined pictorial devices to contrast masculine and feminine elements, specifically, the idea of the boxy, angled masculine and the round, hourglass feminine. However, these visual traditions were combined with my inclusion of a bicycle chain to represent the Empress Irene’s strength, and a butter knife instead of a more regal sword to crown Charlemagne, which gives an implication of my personal feelings on the matter.


Though I am focusing on objects that previously contained, or were given, elements of historical significance, I am not restraining myself to objects that directly reference, physically, the period in question. Since my work is viewed by a contemporary audience, and my interpretation is affected by my view of the world through twenty-first century eyes, I have found that the inclusion of contemporary objects in my work, such as the butter knife and bicycle chain mentioned earlier have had positive effects. Not only does their inclusion provide an accurate impression of the way my mind interprets the historical information, it also allows my contemporary audience to draw personal connections with my art through the items, themselves. Just as my selection of these contemporary items reflects a personal connection with the subject matter, it can also suggest a personal relationship with the objects themselves. For instance, in my drawing, The Holy Roman Empire, I included a key as a symbol of the authority of the papacy, a traditional religious symbol used throughout Christian art for centuries. However, I chose to use my own key to the door of my father’s house instead of an older, more “authentic-looking” key because of the parallels it drew to the position of the pope as the father of the Catholic church, and also to God, “our Father, who art in heaven.” This is not something that is known to the viewer, or that necessarily needs to be conveyed to the viewer in order for the reference to be understood, it is simply a way for me to layer my use of the key metaphor, and to include part of myself in the piece.


Audrey Flack also uses objects to represent more than their physical nature, including personal and cultural references in her paintings. Not only does she reference traditional iconographic symbols in her photorealistic still lives, she includes objects of personal significance that suggest her presence or, in some cases, to directly connect her to a piece. For instance, in her piece Wheel of Fortune (Vanitas), Flack uses the still life to explore the passage of time and fortune in a human life by directly considering her own existence. This work contains elements, such as the skull, a traditional symbol of death, along with tarot cards and a crystal ball which have universal connotations about the subject Flack is exploring. Along with these more established objects Flack includes personal objects and images from her own life, like the photograph of her autistic daughter, as well as the artist’s own reflection in the mirrored surface of the crystal ball, and the piece becomes a self-portrait. By choosing to work in a photorealistic style, Flack is able provoke questions on a metaphorical level, but also on a physical, more visual level, which is something I am very interested in cultivating in my own work.


William Sidney Mount takes this contrast a step further in his work Music Stand, a trompe l’oeil painting of music sheets on a three-dimensional music stand. By melding the two differing aspects of this work, the physical illusion and the physical reality, together in one piece, Mount is able to create an object that successfully provokes thought while skillfully deceiving the eye. Though many of these things would not provoke a reverent response when seen on their own, painting them in this manner invites close scrutiny from the viewer. For instance, in Trompe l’Oeil Letter Rack Samuel Van Hoogstraten paints a collection of items tucked into a letter rack, all of which are painted in a manner that suggests their reality, and in turn, proposes the reality of the letter rack as a tangible object. The fiction of Van Hoogstraten’s painting can only be determined by approaching and studying it, because with only a glance, the viewer will be unable to understand what is in front of him.


This need to provoke scrutiny from the viewer is one of the reasons I choose to work relatively small. This is also, in part, because my work is so full of detail, which encourages a smaller scale that does not over-power them, however, I work small primarily because I am attracted to the art/viewer intimacy that is created with smaller work. A small scale forces the viewer to approach my work on both physical and mental levels in order to absorb the information being given that is not apparent from a distance. I am interested in cultivating a similar viewer/art relationship to the one John Berger describes in Ways of Seeing, when he states “[w]orks of art are discussed and presented as though they were holy relics: relics which are first and foremost evidence of their own survival.” This dichotomy of the illusioned physicality of the objects and the real tangibility of my drawing is one that intrigues me and provokes me to include such a high level of detail in all of my drawings to enhance this illusion. This curiosity I have about the objects I am working with is a result of my experience studying the material culture of the past, working with historical artifacts, and my interest in the museum field.


Finally, I work small in order to draw connections between my drawings and photography, and I am consciously considering traditional photographic dimensions when determining the size of my work. Though my still lives are not exactly the traditional dimensions of a photograph, their size suggests that of a photograph, and allows me to make additional connections with photography. As in photography, I consider my work a visual document detailing the life of an individual. It is intended to be outwardly believable, both in terms of the information and in the re-creation of my objects, however, as with photographs there is a tension present between the truth and reality of the referent. By drawing in a photo-realistic style I am able to create a fictional reality in my drawings that is meant to be questioned and reinterpreted by each viewer. This relationship between my work and photography has developed for the same reason that trompe l’oeil has proven to be so inspirational: to emphasize the object quality that I want my drawings to possess. The final product of photography the process is the photograph—an object that has its own physical presence. Old photographs are treated with great respect and cared for in the same way things of great value are. In this way, photographs become relics of the past—objects.


My drawings are created to be viewed and displayed in multiples. The selection of an historical person and the items chosen for their representation are chosen in correlation with the other drawings in the group. This is to ensure that the still lives in a certain group will be complimentary both visually and conceptually, yet different enough to provoke a conversation between the pieces, highlighting the differences and the similarities, and at the same time, allowing the viewer to discover what it is that makes each individual significant. Through these conversations I mimic the relationships that people have in their own lives, and think about how the people I am illustrating would, and did, interact with each other. My attempts to depict these relationships visually, has led to a variety of different dialogs and methods of expression. In my drawing, The Holy Roman Empire, I display the relationship of Pope Leo III and Charlemagne and emphasize, by including both men in the same drawing, that the two were reliant on one another, and without one, neither would have been as successful. Though Charlemagne was ostensibly the ruler of the Empire, he was reliant on the Pope for his validity and power. In this case, I contrast this drawing with one of the Byzantine Empire—two governments that existed at the same time, and that truly had a relationship similar to the one I have illustrated. I have also explored the idea of looking past time, and focusing on individuals themselves. By comparing those who would never have met, I can provide an interpretational view of history, one that is largely dependent on my vision of these people. I am then able to stress different aspects of these people’s lives based on the other individuals present in the dialog, as is the case in the triptych, Three Thomases (Jefferson, “Stonewall” Jackson, and my father). The conversation between these drawings should raise questions as to the nature of the relationship of the group, questioning how they would have interacted and how the drawings themselves interact.


The exception to these groupings is my piece, Eleanor of Aquitaine, which is intended to be viewed on its own. I have chosen to do this because of the nature of the individual I am working with. Eleanor of Aquitaine was very much an individual who could not be constrained by one king or even one country. Whereas many women in her position would have been confined by the expectations that went along with being a queen, Eleanor was able to dismiss them for much of her life, which gave her a substantial amount of power over her own existence, not a common position for any woman at this time. Because in life, Eleanor of Aquitaine refused to be anything less than herself, I felt that incorporating a still life of her into a group would undermine much of what I respect about her and her accomplishments.


The installation artist Fred Wilson is very concerned with creating a dialog by visually comparing objects that would not normally be displayed together. In this way, Wilson’s objects become more than their physical nature, they become conveyors of ideas, to be interpreted by his audience. His found objects are placed in odd situations, much removed from their previously sterile environment in order to make a statement about race relations in the United States. In his exhibition, Mining the Museum at the Maryland Historical Society, in a works entitled Baby Carriage c. 1908 and KKK Hood Wilson placed a Klu Klux Klan hood in a baby carriage, to raise questions about the role parents have in teaching their children racist values, and to illustrate the type of men and women who make up the Klan: on the outside they are ordinary citizens with families and jobs like everyone else. Though each object possessed meaning on its own, when brought together they provided a much more powerful and dynamic message, one that was very different from their original connotations, viewed separately.


Questioning what is reality and what is fiction is one thing that has continuously been a part of my journey to understand history visually. What is fact? What is truth? The academic world is focused on studying different aspects of reality, however, perceptions of what is real, what exists, and what we know as fact are constantly changing, leaving behind questions in the place of certainty, and vice versa. For me, history is very real, but I know that its reality is built on a foundation of lies and half-truths. Being part of the history made yesterday and the day before makes me question the validity of what we know about the history of hundreds of years ago, but being aware of the inconsistencies does nothing to deter my interest, in fact, it does the opposite. Art, on the other hand, seems always to be categorized by its emphasis on the emotional, subjective and in-tangible. However, art it also fact—the existence of the physical tangibility of a painting on canvas or a marble sculpture cannot be denied. Art provides more answers than textually-based history—we know civilizations existed because of their art, and only because of their art. Art is what allows the story of history to become fact. My art is for the consumption of the viewer, to be digested in whatever way he or she chooses. In the end, I can do nothing more than present my argument of facts and opinions, and know that the only certainty is that truth comes in a variety of colors, and nothing is certain.

 

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