This thesis forms part of a practice-based PhD which combines painting practice and introspective reflection to interrogate idealised bodies presented on social media platforms. My self-portraiture assimilates the language of abstract form, yet draws on subjective life and individual experience, to create an introspective form of self-narrative. Taking the selfie as a point of departure I use a varying combination of paint, pencil, and collage to probe these idealised self-depictions which have become ubiquitous online. The paintings are bodies that have been replicated, deconstructed, and then revised to reveal the vulnerability, so often hidden in social media self-portraits, as a condition of selfhood. The practice draws on the research of feminist scholars and authors on the abject, extending on the work of media scholar Alexandra Sastre (2014) who hypothesises depictions of bodies as incomplete or unstable as an advancement for women’s bodily representation. Implementing elements of Sastre’s proposed method of evolution, the body-in-process, which is the term that I coined to explain the content of the paintings, to publicly expose the naturalistic vulnerable body, presenting bodies in their own “affective, anxious truth of continual self-making” (Sastre, 2014:941). The research examines abjection in the context of selfie-taking practice. Using abjection as a tool the painting practice interrogates the transmission of socially endorsed, purified and ritualised bodies online. The research methodology takes processual influence from painter Maria Lassnig. In this research her search for corporeal truth is interpreted as an exposure of vulnerability, a revealing of the flawed self. Presented and disseminated as a zine and embedded hashtag, the practice bridges the distance between painterly and digital bodies. Instead of offering a rejection of selfie-taking practices, the zine instead proposes a counter narrative within the systems of mass and social media that perpetuate them. The practice stands as a contemporary way of visualising abjection that comments in an innovative way on modern social media self-portraiture.
| Date of Award | 7 Nov 2024 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Supervisor | Liam Devlin (Main Supervisor) |
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