Painting 'Revelation of Erasure' Brian Dillon my thoughts... 26/10/23

Dillon's essay really solidified how erasure always leaves traces of its impacts. It made me question the purpose of erasure, as he said it was "done to make the world look new again", however, is this newness ever achieved if scars are left behind? He developed this through the example of palimpsests, "when you try to wipe the slate clean", however, these manuscripts embrace the scars of the previous writing, whether intended or not, adding a new dimension. One could argue the indentation of the text to be removed into the paper even emphasises it more.

"Every painting, said Picasso, is a sum of destructions" - I had never considered how building up paint could be a form of erasure; each brushstroke is concealed by the next to create a new form - does this erase/conceal whats beneath if it informs the final outcome? Also, painting's "physical extension supports its surface flatness, which in turn suggests a notional depth", therefore, building up paint three-dimensionally, erasing each brushstroke with the next, creates a two dimensional depth on the picture plane.

Dillon hypothesises Modernist monochrome to be a result of "larding" the "canvas with too much significance, not too little: excess is a form of erasure too". This contradiction of erasure being additive as well as subtractive made me question the relation to the properties of the paint - opaque paint would build up, erasing through concealing, whereas, translucent paint would erase itself when built up. The mention Modernist Monochrome prompted me to think of Yves Klein - does he erase the white surface by painting on it? Is there even a need to conceal what's beneath? Is this concealment unavoidable as all paintings need a structure to be painted onto?

Aziz + Cucher

George from Dystopia series 1995

C-print

127 x 102 cm

© Courtesy Henry Urbach Architecture © Aziz + Cucher

Aziz and Cucher's 'Dystopia' series 1994-5 related to my work the most, removing features, "leaving a smooth, affectless, but somehow tragic surface". By erasing particular features, such as the eyeballs and mouth, other details are highlighted, like the nose and eyelids. When exploring erasure in my work, I cut out the stereotypical features that made the model 'beautiful', which also lead me to the same conclusion, that the erasure of one aspect accentuates another. However, my collage looked dystopian, inhuman, and mask-like as the negative space left drew even more attention to the missing features, whereas, Aziz and Cucher's use of blurring is more inconspicuous, they erase by blending, so the viewer doesn't focus on whats cut out, but the remainder of the face.

Dillon's psychoanalytical links to erasure fascinated me, especially how he explored Thomas De Quincey's theory that "there is no such thing as forgetting possible to the mind...the submersion of experience in memory precisely as a text erased and overwritten". When we try to remember experiences, we cannot physically relive them, so they are therefore rewritten in our minds, trying to remember them exactly as much as possible, however, its never exact. This made me think of what affects how we relive memories - how they're overwritten, how we perceive them? What affects how much of the experience is erased from our mind?

Dillon explores a plethora of erasure techniques, including Idris Kahn's "sacred text overwrites itself until its a blur of meaningless ciphers, and the vertical gutter between the pages a deep black void". This made me question the bounds of illegibility - at what point does overlaying cause indecipherability? How many layers are needed to conceal whats beneath? Also, it intrigues me how the same text can cause this effect, just a multiplication of it - there is a contradiction between the reproduction yet erasure of the same text/words. There is also an interesting contrast between the visual results of overlaying text vs the block spine.

"The scores of Chopin and Beethoven are subjected to the same superimposition, their notes clotted like flies" - there is a contrast between Kahn and the musicians as Kahn's overlaying was meticulously mathematical to create a desired visual effect, erasing the original image, yet Chopin and Beethoven subconsciously build on, manipulate, and edit their original notes, simultaneously creating a visual artwork on the page and constructing a musical masterpiece. I'm enticed by how the erasure is additive as the overlay codes for a masterpiece.

Dillon mentioned "novels of the novels of the eighteenth century, readers were invited to imagine undescribed erotic adventures, on the blacked-out pages of classified documents, or in the cancelled lines of a prisoner’s censored letter". Using erasure to black-out surfaces fascinates me, as erasure is almost used to create mirror, forcing the viewer to physically stare at their reflection and self-reflect, and therefore each have their own perception of the artwork. "The lost word denotes the intercession of authority", therefore what's the hierarchy of the erased words vs the overwritten, what becomes more important, or is there a symbiotic relationship between them?

Overall I understood and enjoyed deconstructing Dillon's essay, however, the Freud sections confused me as I couldn't quite comprehend the theory behind his experiments. Freud's investigation into the "relation of the conscious and the unconscious mind" made me question our control over mental erasure - what affects the extent of how much we can remember an experience? Is this determined by the type of emotional experience - do frightening, happy, emotion-packed experiences become more engrained in our mind than mundane affairs that easily get erased like the "light pull" of the slab in Freud's experiment? Dillon compared this notion of the subconscious to an Etch a Sketch, "hold it at the right angle to the light, and all your perceptions are still visible". This made me question to what extent our memories are erased? How far do we need to dig into our subconscious?

Dillon's idea that "Modernist art...was a cultural tabula rasa from which all trace of the styles of the past had been erased" stimulated me as I think of modernism as a reaction to traditional styles of the past, therefore, is the past erased as modernist art arguably wouldn't exist without its predecessor to rebel against? The past is therefore engrained in modern art through the objection of it.

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