I decided to paint myself, because when watching Franko B the fact that he is painted this pure white not only shows up the blood as it spills down him but also accentuates the sense that he the artist is vulnerable and even though I am not going out into the public arena, I know that I would find that in physically painting myself and having the imagery recorded for all to see would cause me distress due to issues with body imagery, especially my own and the world to see all my imperfections was hideous thought. This was accentuated by mainly being outside in my garden, where if my neighbours can see me if they wanted to. I used acrylic paint that was a red/brown colour and my daughter helped me to reach the areas of difficulty! Furthermore she was in control of the images taken; again the feeling of loss of control was difficult to deal with.
In doing this experiment I was attempting to ‘step into the artist’s shoes’ because I do genuinely struggle with the ‘live performances’ of Franko B, however when reading McNiff, S. Art based Research In Knowles and Cole (2008) Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Research. SAGE.
McNiff states “There is no better way to understand a particular aspect of creative practice than to research it in this direct way.”
He continues to say “The focus of my research shifted away from experimenting with human subjects and towards the more direct examination of the artistic process.”
I felt that I had to somehow remove the issue of the self – harming aspect and take into consideration other aspects of his performance, obviously one route I could take was to paint myself. The reason I did keep underwear on was I found this an incredibly difficult process for me to undertake many due to my weight issues and lack of confidence, and I didn’t want to alienate my neighbours completely.
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