{"id":190,"date":"2021-06-30T14:23:04","date_gmt":"2021-06-30T14:23:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/?page_id=190"},"modified":"2023-02-02T15:40:12","modified_gmt":"2023-02-02T15:40:12","slug":"skin","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/index.php\/skin\/","title":{"rendered":"Skin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3>&#8216;Otherness&#8217;<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-3 is-cropped\"><ul class=\"blocks-gallery-grid\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"584\" height=\"853\" src=\"http:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/IMG_2780.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"203\" data-full-url=\"http:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/IMG_2780.jpg\" data-link=\"http:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/index.php\/skin\/img_2780\/\" class=\"wp-image-203\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/IMG_2780.jpg 584w, https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/IMG_2780-205x300.jpg 205w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 584px) 100vw, 584px\" \/><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"745\" src=\"http:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_1622-1-1024x745.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"95\" data-full-url=\"http:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_1622-1.jpg\" data-link=\"http:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/index.php\/grids\/img_1622-1\/\" class=\"wp-image-95\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_1622-1-1024x745.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_1622-1-300x218.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_1622-1-768x559.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_1622-1-1536x1118.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_1622-1-1568x1142.jpg 1568w, https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_1622-1.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"575\" src=\"http:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_1769-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"105\" data-full-url=\"http:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_1769-1.jpg\" data-link=\"http:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/index.php\/grids\/img_1769-1\/\" class=\"wp-image-105\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_1769-1.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_1769-1-300x168.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_1769-1-768x431.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure><\/li><\/ul><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>For all its novel rich ideas about the nature of the changing modern world in the last century, Modernism failed to recognise that people did not all experience the world in the same way as privileged white men.&nbsp; The artists and writers of the time hunting for universal truth failed to understand that meaning was relative and that a system of binary opposition that created hierarchies was flawed in concept and in its ability to function.&nbsp; It also rested on a contradiction that all people are rational and equal but that some are more rational and equal than others.&nbsp; Modernism was blind, not to difference but to \u2018Otherness\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Two models are involved in order to explain \u2018Otherness\u2019 and the production of identity.&nbsp; Essentialism assumes there is some intrinsic content to any identity defined by either a common origin or structure of experience.&nbsp; With this model, struggling against the notion of a particular identity takes the form of trying to discover the authentic or genuine content of this identity and then contesting the negative separate and distinct view by offering a positive one.&nbsp; The second model claims identities are always relational and incomplete, temporary and unstable, and focuses on their formation through cultural and linguistic construction.&nbsp; It is based on a view of fragmentation which emphasizes the multiplicity of identities and of the varied positions within any apparent identity, but encourages coalition through affinity.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;<strong>On ne nait pas femme, on le devient.&#8221; Simone De Beauvoir: Le Deuxieme Sexe, 1949 (&#8220;One is not born a woman, she becomes one.&#8221; The Second Sex )<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>We can also questions the problematic use of western traditions of dichotomy which create antagonistic dualisms, which lead to the domination and subjugation of those constituted as \u2018Other\u2019.&nbsp; If we reject the necessity for a classification of identity; then the space between all these distinctions disappears, all meanings are exploded and a reconstruction of identity is possible, no longer dictated by naturalism or taxonomy; where individuals can construct their own identity by choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u201cThe interstitial passage between fixed identifications opens up the possibility of a cultural hybridity that entertains difference without an assumed or imposed hierarchy.\u201d (Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture 1994)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rethinking hierarchies does not mean reverting to a policy of universality because regarding everyone as the same ignores physical and psychological variations but gender and racial stereotypes need to be re-assessed in the face of reproductive freedom, economic necessity and globalisation.&nbsp; It is this bridge that must be crossed, these lines which must be blurred.&nbsp; Painting and printing combined with collage is a method which reflects this rejection of exclusive traditional media and proposes a new non-hierarchical amalgamation of techniques.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Challenges to fixed identity stereotypes involve an exposition of representation and language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h4>Splicing<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-3 is-cropped\"><ul class=\"blocks-gallery-grid\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"603\" height=\"893\" src=\"http:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_1488.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"194\" data-full-url=\"http:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_1488.jpg\" data-link=\"http:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/index.php\/skin\/img_1488\/\" class=\"wp-image-194\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_1488.jpg 603w, https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_1488-203x300.jpg 203w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 603px) 100vw, 603px\" \/><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"604\" height=\"894\" src=\"http:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_1494.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"196\" data-full-url=\"http:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_1494.jpg\" data-link=\"http:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/index.php\/skin\/img_1494\/\" class=\"wp-image-196\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_1494.jpg 604w, https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_1494-203x300.jpg 203w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 604px) 100vw, 604px\" \/><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"573\" height=\"868\" src=\"http:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_1491.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"195\" data-full-url=\"http:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_1491.jpg\" data-link=\"http:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/index.php\/skin\/img_1491\/\" class=\"wp-image-195\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_1491.jpg 573w, https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_1491-198x300.jpg 198w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 573px) 100vw, 573px\" \/><\/figure><\/li><\/ul><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Fantasy and collage is an effective tool for revealing the social function of imagery. Using images of vehicles and machines, which are often referred to with \u2018female\u2019 pronouns and adjectives, shows how language betrays the power relations inherent in our thinking about gender difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Carapace<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"884\" height=\"1024\" src=\"http:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_2129-884x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-109\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_2129-884x1024.jpg 884w, https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_2129-259x300.jpg 259w, https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_2129-768x889.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_2129-1326x1536.jpg 1326w, https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_2129.jpg 1329w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 884px) 100vw, 884px\" \/><figcaption>Acrylic on canvas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Shells are the outer skeletons of small sea crustaceans like crabs and molluscs, beautiful on the outside; ugly, slimy, visceral on the inside. Like women, they are admired and valued for their outer appearance, their inner leaky core of flesh and fluid reviled and even demonised.&nbsp; Women must be clean, dry and tucked in; their bodily functions of menstruation and childbirth with all the blood and gore hidden and denied. Shells act as a symbol of this containment and repression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fine art has a history of sanctifying the female body in this way, with any hint of sexuality degraded as pornography.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Venus<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"943\" height=\"593\" src=\"http:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/IMG_3202.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/IMG_3202.jpg 943w, https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/IMG_3202-300x189.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/IMG_3202-768x483.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 943px) 100vw, 943px\" \/><figcaption>Screenprint collage on board<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>The classical image of Venus epitomises the discrepancy between the natural condition and the cultural conditioning of women. The cold, stone exterior of the goddess belies the real lived experience of being a woman and presents an ideal of beauty it is impossible to emulate.<\/li><li>The Virgin Mary is a representation which encapsulates traditional, Christian values and also carries connotations&nbsp; of womanhood which are impossible to attain. She contrasts with Eve, a figure who destroyed man with her devious ways. These characters, age old and objects of myth still linger and languish in our language and culture, which carries the past and historical division down the centuries.<\/li><li>The meander pattern is another motif which refers to the influence of classical antiquity in the staging of privilege.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"607\" height=\"693\" src=\"http:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/IMG_2698.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-202\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/IMG_2698.jpg 607w, https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/IMG_2698-263x300.jpg 263w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 607px) 100vw, 607px\" \/><figcaption>Acrylic and collage on canvas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h4>Splitting<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The psychological process of splitting by the white middle class male which attributes all its weak, threatening and negative fears as black, working class or female, hinges on a warped idea of independence. In terms of race, colonial administrators were traditionally private boarding school educated middle class white males, who had been sent away from home as children and had risen through the traditional ranks to take charge in outposts of the Empire. The classics underpinned this education and denoted superiority and aspiration. They learned it was a personal virtue and a moral goal to be independent; to stand alone, rigid, unemotional and contained; to be in control and to keep control; be in charge, set an example, etc.&nbsp; The hierarchy established was one of master and slave, derived from the public school system of headmaster and pupil.&nbsp; There was an element of the benevolent father but broken attachment and emotional detachment meant that when the \u2018natives\u2019 revolted or failed to be grateful for this patronage, they were suppressed by ruthless authority and with punishing cruelty.&nbsp; This view was upheld by the projection of indolence and greed, rampant sexuality and fecundity on indigenous people and the denial of the white man\u2019s own economic dependence on the surplus value produced by foreign wage labour.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The same psychological logic is at play in attitudes towards women who, without the economic freedom to support themselves, remain dependent on the benevolence and patronage of white men, who desire and crave but loath and fear them at the same time. The idea of woman becomes split and warped with the conflicting ideals. On the one hand women are objects of desire, but they are also emulated for their chastity and success as a mother, so their sexuality is either exploited or denied. These attitudes position them as physical entities, closer to nature than men, ruled by emotion, flights of fancy and the imagination.&nbsp; Men, on the other hand, are creatures of reason, their driving force being the intellect, logic, exploration and progression.&nbsp; Nature and culture poles apart.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Driven by progressive advancement, this has been responsible for much of the discriminatory divisions between groups of people in the areas of gender and race, as it also came to connote a superior condition of civilisation, independence and of moral uprightness and social dignity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u201cIn Western societies, straight lines are ubiquitous&#8230;an index of the triumph of rational, purposeful design over the vicissitudes of the natural world<\/strong>&#8230; <strong>Under these conditions, straightness becomes an unambiguous index of masculinity, as curvature indexes femininity\u2026savages and proto-humans have been accused of all sorts of fecklessness and debauchery, from incest to cannibalism\u2026The first are associated with humanity and Culture, the second with animality and Nature.\u201d (Ingold, Lines 2007)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8216;Otherness&#8217; For all its novel rich ideas about the nature of the changing modern world in the last century, Modernism failed to recognise that people did not all experience the world in the same way as privileged white men.&nbsp; The artists and writers of the time hunting for universal truth failed to understand that meaning&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/index.php\/skin\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Skin<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/190"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":383,"href":"https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/190\/revisions\/383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}