An exhibition in two parts: Towards Abstraction and Towards Portraiture
That we exist, and the considerations of our existence, is at the center of philosophical inquiry. Our existence is constituent in two ways: reality, that objective thing as it is, as well as representation, which is aligned with our perceptions, interpretations and responses to what is real. The latter yields the world of the image, a kind of simulacra that is described as a mode of existence because of the power representation holds in influencing our thoughts and beliefs, selves and experiences. In an essay titled “Towards a Philosophy of Image”, Indian professor Franz Manjali at Jawaharlal Nehru University writes: “A ‘philosophy of image’ – a rather vaguely used term – ought to be able to account for the use of the term ‘image’ beginning from its sense of the ‘mental image’ to the current proliferation of ‘images’ in the scientific, artistic, literary and mediatic domains.” For centuries, philosophers have argued passionately and variously about how we sense, perceive and cognize images, and the role they play in binding us to faculties of the imagination as much as truth itself. Where some scholars conflate the mind with matter, others draw distinctions between the emotional activity of the imagination with the sacrificial passivity of perception, while still others argue that the image precedes the thing itself. What’s most notable among these theories is the inadvertent relationship that endures between the individual and the image, both caught continuously and reflexively in processes of production and perception.
With such ideas in mind about the relationship of the image to truth, reality and human consciousness, we bring forth a visual thought experiment as an exhibition in two parts: towards abstraction and towards portraiture. In critical practice, the conceptual categories of abstraction and portraiture are two different approaches to narrative storytelling – looking in and looking out, respectively – carrying different weights of emotion, technique and meaning in the rendering of images, distinguishing how they can be both read and felt by viewers. Where abstraction offers access to personal myths and reflections, guiding our recognition deeper within, portraiture acts as a depiction of likeness as much as a conjurer of memory, relying on symbolism to coax us back into the larger world. Though not without nuances, the artistic image offers a more conventional understanding of representation that invites, as we explore, a deeper contemplation on the mental image as thought and feeling that foregrounds human cognition – or what connects us to ourselves, to others and the world.