Culture, Identity & the Visual Arts: Who Am I?

First presented at the 2001 Fifth Congress of the Americas in Puebla, Mexico

When we speak of identity, what do we mean? How does cultural identity contribute to the formation of personal/private identity and vice-versa? How might this be reflected in an artist’s work in the postmodern era? Identity is in part defined as the condition of being oneself, and not another. But for an individual positioned marginally in a culture, for an individual defined as “other,” identity is often fragmented or fractured. The very notion of “other” defies or contradicts the idea of identity. The sense of self becomes elusive – a slippery and mutating state of being. Personal identity shifts and transforms in response to the shifting environment, and a lingering hypervigilance mediates self-definition. In addressing the idea of identity development and the fragmented self, I explore the multiple responses of an artist to the question, “who am I?”

The issue of identity in the visual arts emerged in a new light with the shift from a modernist to a postmodernist paradigm in the mid 20th century. Modernist philosophy (particularly high modernism) favored originality and the reduction of visual arts to their purest possible form, as evidenced in the well-known directive “art for art’s sake”. Modernist art strove for a pure aesthetic, and was theoretically stripped of any references outside of itself, isolated from autobiographical, historical, social, cultural, and political influences. Although Modernism desired to embrace a wider audience through a purely formal and universal language, it’s divorce from the experiences of everyday life and from personal identity ultimately alienated many viewers, particularly in the wake of world war II atrocities. This led to the emergence of Postmodernism as both a response to and a critique of modernist philosophy. The contemporary experience, according to postmodernism, cannot be separated from social, cultural, political or historical influences and awareness. The information age, heightened by advances in computer technology and the advent of the internet and the world wide web, has led to heightened global awareness and a blurring of boundaries between interart disciplines and nonart disciplines. The idea that art can be created in a relative vacuum, devoid of any external references or influences, becomes highly suspect in light of contemporary critical theories that posit the profound influence of language, culture, and history (to name just a few) on identity formation and the influence of personal identity on modes of expression. It is with postmodern philosophies in mind that I discuss the development of my work, its relationship to personal identity, and identity’s influence on perceptions of contemporary culture.

In February of 2001, I was honored with a twenty-year retrospective of my work, reflecting the length of both my teaching career and my career as a professional artist. The experience of seeing selections from 20 years of work brought together in one space provided me an opportunity to make some broad-based observations that would not have otherwise been possible. I was especially struck by what appeared on the surface to be significantly different bodies of work. In relating the diverse work to specific periods in my life, it occurred to me that I was looking at a visual record of multiple selves, of conflicting and compartmentalized aspects of identity. Further reflection revealed the profound impact of familial, social, and cultural influences on the formation of personal identity, and the manifestation of these influences in my work.

Twenty years ago, as I completed my graduate studies, I developed a series of drawings that were closely cropped images of the female body, intimate in scale, and primarily self-portraits. At that time, I understood my formal intent to be depictions of the body that, while realistically drawn, were partially abstracted by virtue of the cropped image, the position of the body, and the isolation or decontextualization of the part from the whole. In hindsight, however, it is clear that there is much more going on in these works than I had been consciously aware of when making them. Images of a single female form are suggestive of a body in pleasure or pain…the head is thrown back, the back is arched, and the body is exposed, anonymously. Suggestions of a 2nd female emerge in the work – limbs intertwine, hands touch flesh, and an erotic encounter is alluded to, again anonymously.