With figurative painting we mean painting that depicts a figurative image, an art that derives its image from life. This may entail the depiction of animate or inanimate objects: landscape, still life and portrait, to mention a few.
This research project tries to ascertain what is necessary to depict a figurative image and more importantly how to reduce the image to a minimal essence and still retain its figuration. This research is chiefly concerned with the making of figurative paintings and with the systematic reduction and elimination of narrative details within the figurative image.
The various stages of the making process are photographically documented. This documentation gives a record in time and place of how these paintings were made and when and how the reduction was applied. In a dissertation and with the aid of a PowerPoint presentation, the history of two paintings and their making process, is shown and explained.
The figurative image is depicted more by painting the space that the objects occupied than by painting the objects themselves.
Researcher: Pat Harris