graphite & watercolour/20x30cm
original source: ‘The Guardian’ 22/05/08
Contemporaneous with photographic images in the daily newspapers of the anguished faces of surviving victims of the Chinese earthquake, & uncontrollably blubbing incompetent footballers (you know who), appeared the source from which this drawing was transcribed, illustrating an advertisement for the store TK Maxx urging potential customers not to be left upset at missing the bargains available through their latest designer promotion. Scanning through the pages of the newspaper, the images obviously occupy similar weight at a purely visual level, & indeed this one was chosen as raw material because it displayed the most aesthetic appeal to me (accusations of superficiality would be, of course, entirely warranted). However, removed, liberated from its original context, & drawn in monochrome from a vividly coloured source, the image has the potential to take on new meaning for any spectator, dependent on their subjectivity & perhaps assuming no prior knowledge of the source. Interesting to remark, then, upon the recourse to signs to signify such as emotion: here, in an entirely artificial construct, the wildly dishevelled hair, mascara-streaked cheeks, set of the mouth on the cusp of tremulousness & look in the eyes suggest, express a ‘significant’ degree of distress at odds with the everyday reality of the situation – this, of course, is also what acting, theatre, cinema does, in common with this image in both its original form & drawn representation, to varying degrees of convincing believability.
Perhaps the most iconic image of a weeping woman would be Picasso’s 1937 painting of that title, produced subsequent to his masterpiece of the Spanish Civil War, ‘Guernica’, which itself features a grieving female figure amongst its cast, & of which the image below is a related drawing. Aware of the historical, contextual references informing the paintings, one can be utterly convinced of the emotional charge they convey & the resonance they have, however stylized, aestheticized the representation.
Picasso 'Woman Weeping' drawing
Soundtrack:
Elvis Costello & the Attractions 'Girls Girls Girls'
Scott Walker 'Sings Jacques Brel'
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