PHENOMENOLOGIES OF NATALITY AND MORTALITY IN CONTEMPORARY ART.
A central and integral part of this dissertation is the investigation and understanding of motivations that spur the production of significant bodies of work that directly or indirectly relate to phenomenologies of birth and death. I have intentionally chosen the artworks of a Central American, a North American and a continental British artist - Frida Kahlo, Bill Viola and Damien Hirst - since their works also spans over a period of time which starts in surrealism from the modern era and stretches into the contemporary and hence the use of new media. Examining the rationale behind their work, will align the phenomenological perspective of …show more content…
Kruger (New York: Brunner-Routledge, 2002), p 138.
Following her near fatal accident in 1925, Kahlo adopted a subject/object relationship to her body which she developed as a result of her penchant for self-examination and self-representation. As Ankori argues, “ ... Kahlo depicted her body as an external presence perceived by the outside world and identified as a specific person, but also as a subjective, internally ‘sensed’ entity. Thus, her ‘body’ is simultaneously an aspect of her ‘objective’ physical Self and one of the vehicles of her ‘subjective’ experiencing Self.” Gannit Ankori, Imagining Her Selves, p 10. I will now turn to discuss two paintings which are but a fraction of Kahlo’s total production of self-portraits, but which i feel are strong conspicuous examples for what they reveal in terms of what we have been discussing earlier on, and that is, the articulation and imaginative use of metaphors and allegories used to represent her pain and suffering.
The first painting is the The Broken Column painted in 1944; oil on masonite, measuring approximately 40 cm by