Kari Dunham - Laguna College of Art + Design

THIS IS FAMILY
A Thesis
Submitted to the Faculty
of
Laguna College of Art & Design
by
KARI DUNHAM
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
of
Master of Fine Arts
December 2013
ii Laguna College of Art and Design
Master of Fine Arts Thesis Approval
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©2013 by Kari Dunham
No part of this work can be reproduced without permission except as indicated by the
“Fair Use” clause of the copyright law. Passages, images, or ideas taken from this work
must be properly credited in any written or published materials.
iii iv ABSTRACT
My work is an exposition about family. I comment on our longing for deep and
meaningful relationships and how the home has potential for both comfort and risk.
Connected to this couplet of home and relationship is the abstract concept of liminal
space. Liminal spaces, or those spaces of in-between, form the threshold between interior
and exterior, self and others, comfort and discomfort. I consider how the individual is a
part of a greater whole; in this case the family, and I use synecdoche as a visual device to
allude to more than is represented on the canvas. My paintings incorporate single or
multiple figures and I employ the home interior as the stage. In the manner of Jerome
Witkin, I utilize the architectonic effect to establish pictorial space and to invite the
viewer into the picture. My intent is to make paintings and drawings that have emotional
power and that are sophisticated in composition—to consider particular gestures of
figures, to incorporate deep space, and to think of liminal space formally, metaphorically,
and methodologically.
v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I want to thank those who have served as my mentors and advisors during the program.
Betty, thank you for helping me make the transition into the MFA from the PostBaccalaureate Program; Perin, for your valuable criticism and musical metaphors that I
will always remember; Sharon, for your directness and insight; Darlene, for your
affirmation and kindness and all our good conversations; Scott, for your critical eye, your
sense of humor, and for making me turn a lovely shade of red when you would comment
on my role as the MFA muse. I also want to acknowledge Christy Perales, who has not
only been housemate and landlord, but friend; without you, home would not have been
home these past few years. I want to thank my community at Little Church by the Sea,
especially Regina and Terry—thank you for your unending love and support. To my
friends and peers in the program, thank you for being like iron that sharpens iron; I look
forward to seeing where our art takes each of us. And finally, many thanks to my family;
to Mother, Dad and Gloria—thank you for believing in me and supporting me in my
artistic pursuits ever since I was little. To Erik, Isak, and Joshua—we’re four peas of a
pod, spread out across the country and world and pursuing our dreams—I’m proud to call
you my brothers. Margaret—thank you for your encouragement and your generous
support these two years—and Mormor—for your ceaseless prayers. I could not have done
this without all of you.
vi DEDICATION
For my family.
vii EPIGRAPH
A rt and the holy are twins.
-Jerome W itkin
viii TABLE OF CONTENTS
DESCRIPTION
Introduction
Technique
Evolution
RESEARCH
1
1
2
3
10
METHODOLOGY
25
CONCLUSION
34
WORKS CITED
37
APPENDIX A
39
ix TABLE OF FIGURES
FIGURE 1
From the Beginning, Kari Dunham, 2012
4
FIGURE 2
His Letter Came on a Tuesday, Kari Dunham, 2013
5
FIGURE 3
Home is Not, Kari Dunham, 2013
7
FIGURE 4
Come to the Table, Kari Dunham, 2013
8
FIGURE 5
Babette’s Feast, “Dinner is Served” (Scene 14), 1987
13
FIGURE 6
The Last Supper, Leonardo da Vinci, ca. 1492/941498
15
FIGURE 7
Division Street, Jerome Witkin, 1984-85
16
FIGURE 8
Carry Me, Tim Lowly, 2002
20
FIGURE 9
Temma on Earth, Tim Lowly, 1999
21
FIGURE 10
Come to the Table (drawing), Kari Dunham, 2013
22
FIGURE 11
Bellelli Family, Edgar Degas, 1858-1867
23
FIGURE 12
W orking with Dad, Kari Dunham, 2013
24
FIGURE 13
Thanksgiving (sketch), Kari Dunham, 2010
26
FIGURE 14
The Table (sketch), Kari Dunham, 2012
26
FIGURE 15
Dinner Conversation, Kari Dunham, 2012
27
FIGURE 16
SE 89th A venue, Kari Dunham, 2013
27
FIGURE 17
Bricklayers at work on a scaffold, Adolph Friederich von Menzel,
1875
32
1 DESCRIPTION
Introduction
This body of work revolves around three related themes: familial relationships;
home as the critical place where those relationships develop; and liminal space as the
place where a person or object can exist on both sides of a boundary. My paintings
consist of domestic home interiors with single or multiple figures. My intent is to make
works that derive from my personal narratives but that engage the viewer on an emotional
level by inviting them to recall their own narratives. I want my paintings to be formally
sophisticated while exuding a love of paint and a willingness to make bold decisions up
until the last brushstroke.
The subject matter that constitutes this body of work stems from my personal life
experiences and the importance that close relationships hold for me. Relationships are at
the root of my identity as are the places I have lived. As author Philip Sheldrake suggests
in his book Spaces for the Sacred, place is so intrinsically entwined with relationship that
you cannot separate the two (9-11). If I think back to a formidable time in my life, such
as the years I lived in Portland, Oregon, I recollect the significant friendships that I
developed and the particular places where we shared experiences together. My
relationship with God, too, is an integral part of my identity, and in a similar manner, I
cannot separate the space of my art making from the relationship of my faith.
In my paintings, I comment on the importance of family by grouping figures
together in the home interior, or by alluding to another person through specific objects.
Home is the stage for my paintings because it is the place where people experience life
together, and is ideally supposed to be a safe, comfortable, loving place. Home can also
2 become a place where members of a family feel stressed and where tension is palpable.
Comfort. Discord. Division. Joy. Love. Sorrow. This is home—this is family. I am
intrigued by these dualities and weave them into my work.
Arthur Schopenhauer’s story of the porcupines caught in a snowstorm captures
nicely the nature of these dualities. In order to keep warm, the porcupines huddle
together, but by doing so they wound each other. To remedy this, they must find the
middle ground—the space that both affords sufficient warmth and does not cause too
much harm. Schopenhauer tends to relate his parable of the porcupines with a pessimistic
view of societal relationships, but for me it is the dichotomy of feeling warmth and being
wounded that rings true. I can feel joy and sorrow at the same time because I can live in
the threshold between the two. Love can be present in the midst of conflict.
Technique
I am a perceptual painter. It is not my intent to paint highly realistically, but to
turn the form through plane changes and color shifts and to make paintings that are not
simply mimetic but poetic. In an essay on Sangram Majumdar’s work, Scott Noel
categorized Majumdar with other artists like Morandi, Edwin Dickinsin, Lennart
Anderson, and Rackstraw Downes and identified them as “perceptual empiricists.” Noel
begins his essay by asking why painters devote themselves to their craft in light of the
advances in digital photography and video and computer imaging. He goes on to explain
that for these painters, it is about the translation—the “transit from something observed to
a painted equivalent”—that is important. I too paint this way. For me, it is not about
making the image look exactly like reality, but about making the painting a reality that
the viewer can enter.
3 The sizes of my paintings range from 16”x20” to 56”x80”. I paint in oil on
stretched linen or mahogany wood panel. My charcoal drawings are most often done in
preparation for paintings; however, they can stand on their own. Additionally, I have
recently been experimenting with gouache—these works on paper are quite small, only
2”x3”, and depict interior spaces that are significant to me in some way.
My color palette is a combination of chromatic grays (which tend toward pastel)
and saturated color. I am sensitive both to bold color harmonies and subtle shifts in color
and temperature. I paint directly and opaquely without much glazing, and I move color
around without it always having a direct correlation to the color of the subject I am
painting. My color choices may sometimes appear arbitrary, but they are grounded in
intuition and sensitivity to the formal construction of the painting.
Evolution
While the theme of my work—home and family—has remained fairly constant
throughout my two years in the MFA program at LCAD, my ability to convey this theme
in paint has grown exponentially as my technique and abilities have developed. I am a
more confident painter than I was when I entered the program and believe the body of
work I have created is notable for both its form and content. In particular, my increasing
understanding of space is indicative of my growth, and it is my intent to identify and
describe certain spatial mile-markers through the paintings From the Beginning, 2012
(Figure 1), His Letter Came on a Tuesday, 2013 (Figure 2), Home is Not, 2013 (Figure
3), and Come to the Table, 2013 (Figure 4).
From the Beginning (Figure 1) began as a painting about folding laundry. I
wanted to make paintings about the everyday tasks that I felt were sacred in some way.
4 Folk singer Carrie Newcomer wrote a song entitled “Holy as the Day is Spent,” and the
following is one of the song’s stanzas:
Holy is a familiar room and the quiet moments in the afternoon
And folding sheets like folding hands
To pray as only laundry can.
Fig. 1. Kari Dunham, From the Beginning, 2012, oil on mahogany panel, 45”x30” This passage was one of the impetuses for my painting, as was my memory of folding
laundry with my mother and the comfort I associate with that memory. It was during the
making of this painting that my advisor, Perin Mahler, introduced me to Tim Kennedy’s
5 work. I was beginning to recognize that I was a formalist painter, and after gleaning from
Kennedy an understanding of how to compose with color and talking with Perin, I began
to recognize how I could use color to move the viewer around the painting. I really
enjoyed painting that stack of folded laundry, but after painting it I encountered a
problem; the viewer’s gaze got stuck in the lower left corner. To alleviate this, and with a
tip of the hat to Kennedy, I introduced a lamp into the painting (which I basically took
right out of one of his paintings). The lamp incorporated a passage of vivid yellow and
this created a dialogue with the bold colors in the folded laundry.
Fig. 2. Kari Dunham, His Letter Came on a Tuesday, 2013, oil on mahogany panel, 30”x45” 6 His Letter Came on a Tuesday (Figure 2), when compared to From the Beginning
(Figure 1), exhibits a greater consideration of space; it provides the viewer an entrance
into the picture rather than immediately confronting the viewer with the figure, and
introduces the exterior space to the interior. During this time, I had been studying
Vermeer, and observing the way that he invited the viewer into the space, while
simultaneously separating the viewer from the space through the use of objects in the
foreground such as a chair, a table, or a curtain. While I was working on this painting,
Jerome Witkin came as a visiting artist to LCAD. I had the privilege of being in a group
critique with him, and again and again he talked about space. “See where space is used,”
he said and “The hardest thing to paint is not the image of people but the space where
people are.” He also talked about the architectonic affect—how stairs are used to guide
someone into a building and communicate its importance—and how we can apply this to
painting by providing the viewer with ground to stand on or a path through which to
enter. I had just started formulating my next painting, Home is Not (Figure 3), so his visit
was timely and provided me a lot of information to consider.
In the early stages of Home is Not (Figure 3), I spent much of my time drawing
my living room from life, intent on understanding the space before I introduced the
figures. My willingness to expand the picture plane also happened at this point; it was
easy to simply add another piece of paper to a drawing. This became more difficult in a
painting, but if I drew first and solved those problems, it would save time in the long run.
This process can be observed in the evolution of my studies for Home is Not. Originally,
the composition went from the edge of the fireplace to the entryway, but ultimately it
came to encompass a wider space that included the hallway that led to the kitchen. This
7 format was well suited for my theatrical juxtaposition of quietude and dynamism and also
lengthened the time of looking—the actual time it took for the viewer’s gaze to travel
from one side of the painting to the other.
Fig. 3. Kari Dunham, Home is Not, 2013, oil on linen, 53”x76”
In addition to Witkin’s insistence about space, he also inspired me to paint
imagery that evoked greater depth of emotion. I believe our capacity for emotion is a
thread that ties us together in the shared human experience. More specifically, when one
family member feels happiness or sadness or discomfort within the family unit, it affects
the other family members. This is revealed in my paintings because I am cognizant of the
space between figures as well as their arrangement and gestures. The space between is
indicative of emotion and relationship. In Home is Not (Figure 3), for example, the space
8 between the parents on opposing sides of the doorway and the girl standing quietly in the
hallway is expansive. The space between figures in Come to the Table (Figure 4) is not as
dramatic, but it is still manipulated for emotional effect; the male and female figure in the
background, for example, are far enough apart that you get the impression of there being
a bit of awkwardness. The close proximity of the male and female in the foreground,
however, and the fact that they are looking directly into one another’s eyes,
communicates a more intimate relationship.
Come to the Table (Figure 4) is by far my most complex composition to date and
exhibits an increasing confidence and understanding of deep space and how to integrate
figures into a space. In this painting, and in Home is Not (Figure 3), I employ a subtle
warp in perspective, similar to German artist Adolph Menzel’s “lived perspective,” in
order to situate the viewer at a particular point of view.
Fig. 4. Kari Dunham, Come to the Table (in process), 2013, oil on linen, 56”x80” 9 Other ways that I convey emotion and create mood in my work are through my
use of light and the types of architecture in my spaces. Light captivates me, as does its
ability to evoke a particular mood, and it serves as a key player in all four paintings that I
discuss here. In From the Beginning (Figure 1), I treated light more abstractly, painting
the light coming through the window almost like a homage to Diebenkorn than to
Vermeer, with light shining on the ground plane in definitive rectangular shapes. In His
Letter Came on a Tuesday (Figure 2), exterior light comes into the interior through the
open door, reminiscent of the cool Northern European light which pervades Vermeer’s
paintings with a sense of calm (and which often comes through a window). The brightest
light in Home is Not (Figure 3) is at the front door; this becomes the place with the
highest contrast and intensifies the drama of the parents’ conflict. The secondary light
source originates in the back room behind the young girl and alludes to a space that is
outside of the conflict. In Come to the Table (Figure 4), raking light comes in through the
windows on the west side of the house. The low evening light contributes to the reflective
mood of the piece as it silhouettes the grandmother outside the window and the young
man seated at the head of the table. Additionally, the architecture of my spaces
contributes to their mood and content; the harsh geometry in Home is Not lends itself to a
sense of division and unforgiveness and the curves in Come to the Table intuit a feeling
of home, welcome, and inclusion.
Additionally, I imbue my work with emotion by the depiction of familiar family
situations that the viewer can relate to. Most of us have experienced family at some
level—be it a positive or negative experience. I use particular autobiographical
narratives as the foundation for my paintings, but despite this viewers can assign their
10 own narratives to the work and bring meaning that enlarges my original intent. My work
evokes such feelings as awkwardness, comfort, companionship, discomfort, fear, love,
separateness, and sorrow.
RESEARCH
My subsequent research focuses on three literary sources: Philip Sheldrake’s
Places for the Sacred; “People, Land, and Community,” an essay by Wendell Berry; and
Mary Bittner Wiseman’s article, “Vermeer and the Art of Silence.” I also refer to the
film, Babette’s Feast, and conclude with my research on the work of painters Jerome
Witkin, Tim Lowly, and Tim Kennedy.
Philip Sheldrake, in his book, Places for the Sacred, examines how our sense of
rootedness in the place where we live forms our sense of personal and religious identity.
The first chapter, “A Sense of Place,” resonates with me. He discusses place in terms of
local (the physical place where you experience actual time) and universal (the
transcendent place where you experience Christ) and identifies places where the two most
profoundly meet and form liminal space. Liminal space is defined as belonging to an
intermediary or transitional phase. An example of this can be seen in my painting, Home
is Not (Figure 3), where the sheer amount of space between the young girl on the left side
of the painting and her parents on the right forms a threshold between the figures and
infuses the picture with a feeling of tension. This tension brings to question the little
girl’s sense of identity. Sheldrake proposes that relationships are an inherent part of
place, so by painting a broken relationship I am also painting a sense of being uprooted,
of not having a safe place to belong.
11 In my painting, Come to the Table (Figure 4), a similar concept is depicted. There
are eleven figures in this painting. Each person brings his or her own individual
characteristics and identity to the table, but the table itself is a shared space. There is both
a sense of being together and being alone; the viewer gets the feeling that each character
in the painting is trying to figure out where he or she belongs. In a recent conversation
with friend and fellow MFA student Rob Nichols, he recalled something I said on
numerous occasions when we were in the Post-Baccalaureate Program together and
taking Sharon Allicotti’s “Still Life and Interiors” drawing class. He recalled that I would
step back from my drawing and see the scene of the whole classroom—all the students at
their respective easels drawing the elaborate still life that was set up on the stage—and
that I would say, “This should be the drawing.” This story evinces my interest in seeing
broad pictures and observing how individuals interact in groups, how they can
simultaneously be together and alone.
In his essay, “People, Land, and Community,” author and poet Wendell Berry
explains how our belief that knowledge is sufficient has hindered our understanding of
how people, land, and community are connected. Berry proposes that “we do not and cannot know enough to make any important decision,” and that actually, we must say that
love informs our decisions:
We cannot contain what contains us or comprehend what
comprehends us. (…) The part, that is, cannot comprehend the whole,
though it can stand for it (and by it). Synecdoche is possible, and its
possibility implies the possibility of harmony between part and whole.
12 If we cannot work on the basis of sufficient information, then we have
to work on the basis of an understanding of harmony. (Berry, 190)
Berry’s essay correlates to the content of my work in that, by painting about family, I am
commenting on people and community, and formally in that I am employing synecdoche
pictorially. A family is a unit that is both a whole and individual members. Each member
in a family responds to circumstances in particular ways. The circumstance may be a
conflict, as is seen in Home is Not (Figure 3), or it may be the feeling of social
awkwardness that is exhibited in Come to the Table (Figure 4). In my MFA group
critique on September 11, 2013, Kent Twitchell, renowned LA muralist and MFA
mentor, made the following comment: “People there in the room all have a type of phobia about am I going to feel alone, am I going to have a place to sit, someone to talk to—as well as familial elements.” Each person in the painting is trying to find
where he or she fits. The trio of figures on the left side of the painting are engaged in
friendly conversation, as are the two figures in the back, though their distance from each
other and the way that they are holding their drinks like buffers convey a sense of unease.
Relatedly, the man at the head of the table is surrounded by figures but seems to be
alone—whether he is simply hungry and focused on eating or engrossed in his own
thoughts because he does not know what else to do, it is up for the viewer to decide. The
man and woman in the foreground seem to be a couple occupied with each other, and this
contrasts with the single female figure on the right, a self-portrait where I have portrayed
myself as observer of all that is going on.
Synecdoche is a literary device that allows the part to signify the whole. If we can
also think of this as a visual device, I believe I have employed it in my work: In Home is
13 Not (Figure 3), the child’s drawing on the wall and the cut out paper dolls signify a larger
family even though only three figures are present; in both Home is Not and Come to the
Table (Figure 4), though only a part of the house is pictured, I allude to others parts of the
house by including doors, windows, and hallways; and the table and chairs can also be
seen as this device—a piece of furniture which represents the entire family. Synecdoche
allows one to say more by saying less: I see that I speak and paint this way.
Babette’s Feast is a film written and directed by Gabriel Axel, with dialogue in
Danish and French. In the culminating scene (Figure 5), Babette (who used to be a
French chef at a premiere Parisian restaurant) prepares a twelve-course meal for some of
the townspeople of the tiny rural Dutch town, including the elderly sisters she now lives
Fig. 5. “Dinner is Served” (Scene 14), Babette’s Feast, 1987 14 with. None of them know that she was once a sous chef, and the only reason she is able to
cook this one meal is because she won 10,000 francs from the lottery. The table is set
with white linen, the finest china, silver, and crystal, and the seemingly pious
townspeople file into the dining room of the sisters’ meager home and sit down. There is
a special guest at the meal—a General—who comes with his aunt who is the landlady of
the town manor. The first course is served and the wine is poured, and the townspeople
commence eating as if nothing about the meal is special. The General, however, stops
with the first bite—the food is extraordinary! He says it tastes just like the food he had
had at the renowned Café Anglais in Paris. With each successive course, the General
delights in the food more ardently and is more and more certain that the cook of this meal
is the very same as the one at the Café Anglais. The townspeople had been intent on not
taking pleasure in the meal because they feared such strange and exotic foods might be
sinful, but the General’s enjoyment of the meal is contagious and shifts the townspeople’s
viewpoint. By the end of the meal, the townspeople have laughed, enjoyed one another’s
company, relished in the sumptuous food, and imbibed in the finest wines; the
townspeople’s interpretation of the meal changes through the General’s repeated
acknowledgement of its quality.
I first saw this film probably ten years ago, and the poignancy of it’s meaning has
stuck with me. When the townspeople first sit down at the table they are indifferent, but
through the bodily enjoyment of the food and wine they come to recognize and appreciate
the ontological significance of the meal. What does the table truly symbolize? The time it
takes to cook a great meal? The common ground that is found when people who care
about each other sit and eat a meal together? As the General explains, mercy and truth
15 can also be found. The table implies a sense of hope—the expectancy of enjoying a meal
that has been lovingly and painstakingly prepared. Toward the end of the meal the
General makes a speech. “There comes a time when your eyes are opened. And we come
to realize that mercy is infinite. We need only await it with confidence and receive it with
gratitude.” The table is a place where we receive—a place where we come to receive
nourishment for our bodies, but as the General alludes, it is also a place where we can
experience spiritual nourishment through community. Jesus ate with those that were
nearest to him, which Leonardo da Vinci realized in The Last Supper (Figure 6), and I
Fig. 6. Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, ca. 1492/94‐1498, oil with some tempera grassa, 460 x 880 cm, Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan, Italy 16 think if we are honest, sitting at a table and eating a meal with people you care about is
something that most, if not all of us, desire. Come to the Table (Figure 4) is a painting
where some people have already eaten the meal and some are still yet to. The food itself
is not the focus in my painting, but rather the food as the means that brings people
together to the table. In my MFA critique in September, it was interesting to hear my
peers relating their own experiences of being home with families; one person even
communicated that sometimes he feels left out when at family gatherings.
Painter Jerome Witkin also paints about home, family, and community. He often
depicts a particular event by painting a moment that happened just before coupled with a
moment just after. In Division Street (Figure 7), for example, the father is turned away
Fig. 7. Jerome Witkin, Division Street, 1984-85, oil on canvas; triptych
63”x75”/63”x81”/63”x87,” Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Museum of Art,
Utica, NY
from the viewer and is putting on his hat to indicate he is leaving. The mother is stoic,
clasping a plate behind her. The young boy covers his face with a comic book while
simultaneously using the book to frame his ear—speaking to the boy’s feelings of
17 wanting to hide from his parents’ conflict and alluding to the crash of a plate that will
soon be thrown against the wall. In a similar fashion, in Home is not (Figure 3), I position
the young girl in the hallway, her left hand on the wall and her right hand holding a piece
of hair as she nervously chews on it, perhaps having just left her place on the floor where
color crayons, paper dolls and scissors are strewn about. The parents I have placed on
opposing sides of the front door, so the viewer either anticipates that the mom will soon
close the door to keep the dad out, or that he will enter against her will. In music, the
term “tacet” instructs musicians not to play for a particular section. Literally, it means to
be silent, from the Latin word, tacere. By being silent musicians better allow other voices
to be heard. My depiction of the little girl pausing and being quiet emphasizes the
parents’ conflict, and the two together show different points in time—there is the solo,
the duet, and the quiet in between.
In her article “Vermeer and the Art of Silence,” Mary Bittner Wiseman considers
the scope of Vermeer’s appeal and compares and contrasts Brian Jay Wolf’s “Vermeer
and the Invention of Seeing” and Ivan Gaskell’s “Vermeer’s Wager: Speculations on Art
History, Theory, and Art Museums.” Wiseman concludes that the silence that embodies
Vermeer’s paintings is a metaphor for the separateness that exists between each of us.
She proposes that in looking at a painting by Vermeer the viewer acknowledges the inner
worlds of Vermeer’s subjects instead of projecting her own inner life and world onto
them. Wiseman uses the phrase “to bear witness” in terms of the viewer’s relationship to
Vermeer’s subjects—we bear witness when we allow ourselves to stand before a person
(or a painting) and allow something in that person (or painting) to deeply move us.
Wiseman’s concept of “bearing witness” resonates with me, but I am also particularly
18 interested in Wolf’s perspective, his focus on letter writing, and how he explains the telos
of painting for Vermeer. According to the article, six of Vermeer’s thirty-four paintings
relate to the act of writing a letter. Wolf then aligns letter writing with silence; he
explains that letters “point to that which we cannot speak” and join the invisible with the
visible. He further proposes that for Vermeer, painting was writing, and that by painting
he was inscribing meaning onto the world (Wiseman).
How does the invisible join with the visible? An unspoken thought or feeling
often remains hidden, but through writing, or poetry, or writing letters, or making
paintings, the invisible is given flesh—made incarnate so that it can be a physical thing to
be read, seen, or touched. The young girl in Home is Not (Figure 3) embodies the
invisible feelings of discomfort, loneliness, and trepidation. She stands bravely in the
hallway, though not without apprehension, and invites the viewer to open the letter that is
the painting to discover what is written inside.
In a similar manner to Vermeer, I see a sense of separateness in my paintings. In
Come to the Table (Figure 4), this feeling is subtle—it is, after all, a painting about a
family being together—but it is also a painting about being alone. The central male figure
leaning back in his chair with his knee on the table is alone, as is the male figure eating at
the head of the table, the grandmother seen through the window, and the female figure
walking toward the viewer with a plate in her hand. These solo figures are contrasted by
three figures in conversation at the far left of the painting, the duet in the background, and
the couple with their backs to us sitting and talking at the table. In Home is Not (Figure
3), the sentiment of separateness is much more overt as the little girl on the far left of the
painting is separated from her parents by the immense space between them. In His Letter
19 Came on a Tuesday (Figure 2), the female figure is depicted alone, but the letter alludes
to another person as do the two mugs in the still life in the foreground, and the key in the
door simultaneously suggests solitude and companionship, or inside and outside.
Tim Lowly is a representational painter whose work is largely about his extremely
disabled daughter, Temma. In a phone interview with Lowly, he explained to me that, as
a far as they understand, Temma does not have comprehension or memory. She is not
able to talk and communicate in the way that you or I do. She does, however,
communicate through being present: “Temma’s active attentiveness is to the person she is
with, and this makes possibility for love” (Tim Lowly, discussion with author, September
18, 2013).
When I look at Lowly’s work there is a part of me that feels uncomfortable, like
shying away, turning my head—I do not want there to be pain, I do not want a woman
my age to lack the ability to comprehend the world, to remember things, to walk, to run,
to make a meal, to speak with her family, to laugh, to have a family of her own. I do not
want to face the reality of pain. But in the book, Prophetic Imagination, author and
theologian Walter Brueggemann talks about how mourning is the door to joy. Regardless
of who we are, our status, our political position, our education, our vocation, or where we
live, weeping is a common language. The human condition includes the experience of
loss. But as Lowly indicated, having experienced loss makes joy and love all the more
deep. Lowly says of his own work, “My hope is that by using an aesthetic and technique
that is associated with a different kind of image—one which is “nice” to look at—viewers
will be engaged in subject matter that they typically would not feel comfortable engaging”
(“Of Icons”).
20 Lowly’s statement rings true for me because I too like making beautiful paintings,
but some of my imagery comments on issues that may not initially be beautiful, such as
divorce, or feeling alone. In Lowly’s
painting, Carry Me (Figure 8), he has
painted his daughter, Temma, being
carried by those who have served as her
caretakers. Temma is placed in the
center, flanked by three caretakers on
her right and three on her left. She is
unable to move on her own, so she is
being carried. It is a moving image, hard
to look at on one hand and a strikingly
beautiful image of community on the
other—of a whole that is greater than its
parts, of caritas. Caritas is Latin for
charity, love, esteem, high price, or
dearness, and I feel this painting
embodies that sentiment. The viewer of
Lowly’s painting sees the image from a
God’s-eye view, and as a result the
viewer is challenged to look at the
situation from a different perspective.
Fig. 8. Tim Lowly, Carry Me, 2002, Drawing on panel, 108”x48” Private Collection, Chicago 21 On a basic level, I relate my work to Lowly’s in that I am also painting my family.
More than that, however, I share his keen awareness of the perspective of the viewer. I
am interested in how the viewer’s perception enlarges the meaning of a work itself. As I
already mentioned, in Carry Me (Figure 8) Lowly places the viewer at a God’s-eye
vantage point, as he also does in Temma on Earth (Figure 9). In an interview by Heather
Smith, Lowly explains how he took the photo references for Temma on Earth (Figure 9);
he photographed Temma from four feet up, but took about 24 such photos, inching from
Fig. 9. Tim Lowly, Temma on Earth, 1999, acrylic gesso with pigment on panel, 8’x12,’
Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA
her head to her feet as if recording the topography of an area of land. By doing this, the
painting is literally painted from multiple points of view and in that way a more accurate
conception of God’s point of view. Lowly explains that in order for the viewer to actually
22 be able to see all of these points of view at the same time, she would need to be about 30
feet away, but he posits the viewer about only four feet away and this is disorienting. I
have yet to do a painting from this perspective of numerous points of view; however,
related to the idea of viewership, the preparatory drawing for Come to the Table
Fig. 10. Kari Dunham, Come to the Table (drawing), 2013, charcoal on paper, 38”x54”
(Figure 10) was done from one specific point of view as I turned my head in order to take
in and draw the whole scene. By doing this I situated the viewer as if she is a part of the
work and not just an observer.
In February 2013, LCAD had the privilege of hosting guest artists Eve Mansdorf
and Tim Kennedy. Mansdorf and Kennedy are both representational painters and teach at
23 Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. In my studio critique with Kennedy, he
Fig. 11. Edgar Degas, Bellelli Family, between 1858 and 1869, oil on canvas, 200 x 250 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France encouraged me to deliberately set up situations that create ambiguity, to compose with
large shapes, and to work toward the difference. He referred me to Degas’ Bellelli Family
(Figure 11): in that painting, Degas utilizes large shapes to compose the picture, and one
shape blurs into another. The black dress of the girl on the left, for example, merges into
the dress of her mother behind her. And again, the shadow underneath the table becomes
the shadow underneath the father’s desk that becomes the chair that the father is sitting in.
In Come to the Table (Figure 4), the couple in the foreground functions formally as a
24 strong triangular shape that activates the painting; each side of the triangle serves as a
vector that directs the viewer’s gaze. The method of lose and find is also employed in this
portion of the painting by allowing the man and woman’s legs to integrate into the
shadow below the table.
In that critique, Kennedy identified a small painting, W orking with Dad (Figure
12), as one of the more successful paintings I had in my studio at that time. When I took
the “Time Sequence, Narrative” class, we were required to do a series of at least three
paintings, which together conveyed a passing of time. I chose to do a series about
building a barn with my family. One of those paintings, W orking with Dad, pictures
myself in the foreground on a ladder with my hands uplifted and hammering a nail.
Juxtaposed with me is my Dad in the middle ground working inside the barn; formally he
is framed by the interior of the barn and silhouetted by the daylight shining behind him.
Kennedy noted that in this piece I was successfully working toward the difference in two
ways, in both value and in size. My
figure is light in value, whereas my
Dad is dark, and the size of my
figure spans the entire height of the
canvas, which makes the figure of
my Dad small in comparison.
Fig. 12. Kari Dunham, W orking with Dad, 2013, oil on linen, 11”x9”
25 METHODOLOGY
My ideas develop from personal experiences and from conceptual leitmotifs of
family, home, and liminal space. I am interested in the process of building and
strengthening close relationships, as well as the scarring that occurs when deep
relationships are broken. Liminal space is fascinating to me because it allows a person, an
object, or a place to exist in the boundary between two spaces. For example, in His Letter
Came on a Tuesday (Figure 2), the implied narrative of hope and disappointment resulted
from an actual letter that I received from a friend. The open door and the keys that have
been left in the lock allude to this concept of interior and exterior, and the letter
represents a liminal space because, as Mary Bittner Wiseman references in “Vermeer and
the Art of Silence,” the letter—actual writing on an actual page—is a physical object that
exists in the public sphere but is also an extension of a person’s private world. A letter is
also a space that is shared by two people. Similarly, in Home is Not (Figure 3), my idea
derived from a particular memory of my parents. In terms of composition, the total
amount of space between the girl on the left and the parents on the right creates an
interstitial space—a boundary that seems divisive on one hand, and yet beautiful on the
other for that is where the creative process is happening; the fireplace is cold and dark,
but color crayons remain strewn on the ground.
One of these motifs that have long captured me is the image of family gathered
together at a table. Mine is a large family, and the times that we are all able to be together
are becoming fewer and farther between, so the instances when we do gather around the
table are memorable and feel significant. Looking back into earlier sketchbooks, I found
26 a drawing I did of my family in 2010 at the Thanksgiving table (Figure 13). I also did
Fig. 13. Kari Dunham, Thanksgiving (sketch), 2010, ink on paper, 9”x24” sketches of an idea for a family at a table (Figures 14, 15) in my second semester of the
program. My first attempt at a painting of this sort was a small painting with five figures
Fig. 14. Kari Dunham, The Table (sketch), 2012, graphite on paper, 11”x4” that I started last year (Figure 16). For the time being, this piece is at a standstill, though I
plan to finish it and it has informed my large painting, Come to the Table (Figure 4).
27 Fig. 15. Kari Dunham, Dinner Conversation, 2012, charcoal on paper, 18”x24” Fig. 16. Kari Dunham, SE 89th Avenue, 2013, oil on mahogany panel, 12”x18” 28 I began Come to the Table (Figure 4) by drawing the space from life at my aunt and
uncle’s home in Vancouver, Washington. I sat at the table, so I was drawing from that
vantage point, but I turned my head so that I could take in more of the space. The
drawing expanded and grew from one sheet of 18”x24” paper to three sheets. Later, once
I was back at my studio in Laguna, I mounted the drawings onto my studio wall and
began placing the figures in the space. I had had the opportunity to take a couple hundred
photos during a family get-together at my aunt and uncle’s, and browsing through the
photos, I selected those that worked with my composition and added them to the drawing.
Since I was merging multiple photo references it took some work to make the sizes of
figures feel cohesive. The drawing came to have thirteen figures (although this would
change in the painting, which has eleven figures).
I really enjoyed the evolution of this drawing—drawing the space from life,
placing the figures into the space, then deciding to expand the space even further and
extending the drawing from three papers to six. I feel that the drawing itself, though a
study for a painting, is a work on its own.
In order to move into the painting, I took a photo of the drawing, made a 5”x7”
black and white copy, mounted it onto mat board, and painted over it in gouache. I did
this to establish a basic color map for the composition. Though I used the drawing and
the gouache study as guides, the first lay-in of the large painting still proved to be a
colorful mess or sorts. After my MFA critique in September, I realized I needed to
approach the painting in terms of value groupings and simplify some of the more
complex areas. Consequently, I began painting over the upper right hand corner of the
29 painting in grisaille. This was extremely helpful and enabled me to better understand the
logic of the bright light coming in through the window and its effects on the interior.
I recognize there are elements of orderliness in my process, such as drawing from
life, and doing color studies, either in gouache or Photoshop; however, much of my
problem solving is worked out on the actual painting. Scott Hess, my advisor this term,
jokingly commented that my painting was different every time he saw it—why did I go to
all the trouble of doing preparatory drawings and studies, if I was not really going to
follow them? I want my paintings to evoke a sense of verve, and I have found I need to
paint both analytically and with a certain amount of spontaneity in order to achieve this.
My mentor, Darlene Campbell, made the observation that my method of working is also a
metaphor for what I am painting; my process can be messy and scattered, as can familial
relationships. Painter Sangram Majumdar’s process is similar. He speaks of his own work
as a palimpsest, and by that he means that he allows the history of the painting to show in
the final work. Perin first introduced me to his work when I started the program, and I
have admired both his drawings and his paintings ever since. Although I do not allow my
process to show to the extent that he does, I do allow remnants of former decisions to
show through in my final works. One example is the father’s arm in Home is Not (Figure
3) —if you look closely you will see evidence of an earlier version.
Form is also significant in my work; it relates to the analytical part of my
methodology and my propensity to see in terms of shape, color, line, and a system of
points and vertices. For example, in Home is not (Figure 3) I have created a tripartite
composition, in which a vertical rhythm happens three times; the first can be seen in the
corner of the wall that separates the girl from the fireplace; the second in the edge of the
30 fireplace that also borders the entryway; and the third in the front door that leads to the
outside. Like bars that create measures in music, this repeated line establishes a structure
in which the narrative plays out—while the daughter pauses nervously in the hallway,
evidence that she was coloring and drawing on the floor can be seen by the fireplace as
the mother tries to keep the dad out. Another musical concept that I employ is the idea of
counterpoint. In music, counterpoint is when one melody is combined with another
melody. I have juxtaposed the dynamism of the parents at the doorway with the stillness
of the girl in the hallway; each sings a stronger song because you hear the two at the same
time. In terms of color, I maintain a relative sense of harmony in my work. In this
particular painting the most jarring color is the green of the wallpaper behind the mom,
which I chose intentionally because it has the potential to be uncomfortable. Jerome
Witkin uses green in this way, similarly capitalizing on its lurid quality. For example, in
Division Street (Figure 6), a painting about his own parents’ divorce, he uses neon green
in his mother’s face and as an almost palpable light that shines on his dad’s back, his hat,
and parts of the room. For me, I do not push color to be extremely uncomfortable, and
actually, by aligning harmonious color with harsh geometry and a difficult narrative I
intend the painting to walk the line between pleasing and displeasing, comfortable and
uncomfortable.
In terms of my technical process, my first mark on a surface is usually the
imprimatura. In the case of His Letter Came on a Tuesday (Figure 2), I used a Tiepolo
imprimatura (one coat of thinned out Mars Violet that is allowed to dry followed by a
coat of lead white, yellow ochre, ivory black, and a small amount of Gamsol), while in
Home is Not (Figure 4) I used a simple yellow ochre imprimatura. Once the imprimatura
31 is dry I begin the drawing, which serves as the framework for the painting. I particularly
enjoy this part of the process; it is exciting to start a new painting and I like the schematic
nature of measuring, plotting points, and blocking out the large shapes.
Before I actually put paint to canvas, I generally spend around twenty to thirty
minutes mixing paint on my palette with my palette knife. This is another one of the
more analytical steps of my process, but it is necessary for me if I am going to have a
productive and efficient painting session. This is when I set up my array of darks and
lights and tints and more saturated colors. My palette for Home is Not (Figure 3) was
Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna, Ultramarine Blue, Ultramarine Violet, Alizarin Permanent,
Indian Red, Cadmium Red Light, Cadmium Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Naples Yellow, and
Titanium White. My medium was four parts Gamsol to one part Stand Oil.
My goal of the first pass of any painting is to cover the surface. The second and
third passes see progressive refinement and realization in primary, secondary, and tertiary
focal points, but I always continue to step back and look at the parts in terms of the
whole. I work both from life and photo references, and my method of painting is based
on looking at the form (both figure and space) in terms of planes. I do my best to paint
with many brushes so that I can cleanly lay down one note of color next to another—one
plane against another plane to turn the form. This orderliness of paint application
contributes to the comfortable feeling of the painting; however, areas of pentimenti create
dynamism and allude to a struggle and a change of mind.
Adolph Friederich von Menzel was a German draftsman, printmaker, and painter
who lived from 1815-1905. According to author Michael Fried, Menzel was not only
interested in representing ocular truth, but also a truth about his subjects that could only
32 be “intuited, inferred, or otherwise imagined” (2-3). In the section of Menzel’s Reaslism
titled “Art of Embodiment,” Freid explains how Menzel’s method of working situates the
viewer in a particular physical place such that she feels like she is part of the scene. For
example, in Bricklayers at work on a scaffold (Figure 16), the viewer feels like she is
right there at the end of the scaffold. The foreshortening actually lengthens the viewer’s
Fig. 16. Adolph Menzel, Bricklayers at work on a scaffold, 1875, pencil, 32.4 x 24.6 cm, Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin 33 time of looking, rather than speeding it up, and she engages with the barrel and the loose
bricks and other material on the scaffold, imagining what it would be like to pick up a
brick and start working (Fried, 32-34).
I use what Fried refers to as a “lived perspective,” a consideration for the picture
as a whole and the physical movements the viewer would experience when taking in the
scene, such as turning her head. When the viewer looks at my painting Come to the Table
(Figure 4), she feels like she is in that room, perhaps about to take a seat at the table. The
table and adjoining rooms exhibit a slightly warped perspective; the table appears curved
and the walls do not follow a strict one or two point perspective, and in a similar manner
to Menzel’s drawing Bricklayers at work on a scaffold (Figure 15), the viewer’s time of
looking is lengthened. The foreshortening of the table invites the viewer to first engage
with each of the figures seated at the table, as well as the table itself. Then, the viewer’s
gaze moves toward the standing figures, the living room toward the back, and as she
turns her head she sees the figure out the window, and then the figure on the far right
walking toward her which brings her attention back to the ground plane. I am very aware
of the path of the viewer’s eye and how the formal elements of the picture contribute to
the order of looking.
For me, the painting is done when I feel like it does not ask for anything else. This
may take a while to happen, and I may even show a painting with portions that I would
yet like to add or change (as I did with Home is Not), but I think the painting can still
have a powerful impact on the viewer. This realization—that the viewer’s response is not
always contingent upon the finish or the resolution or the perfection of the painting—has
been significant for me. I remember reading a quote by Charles Hawthorne: “Make lots
34 of starts,” he told his students. As one who leans toward perfectionism, this is a good
reminder. Get paint to canvas—that is the most important thing.
CONCLUSION
I began the MFA program at LCAD painting domestic scenes with the concept of
communicating order; folding laundry, the subject matter of From the Beginning (Figure
1), is something that brings order out of disorder. Additionally, I was interested in the
familial connections I associated with these quotidian tasks. Folding laundry was
something I had done with my mother. Baking, something I did with my Dad. At the time
that I was working on From the Beginning, I was interested in alluding to my mom by
depicting a reflection of myself in a mirror that was not the “correct” reflection. In this
way, seeing myself as similar to her but also different. Familial relations have obviously
come to the forefront of my work, rather than taking a back seat. I see that I am still
interested in order, but the order with the disorder, or the comfort with the discomfort—
for me it is about seeing the two together, and these juxtapositions lend themselves to the
idea of interstitial spaces.
When I first entered this program, I concede that I felt intimidated by the
outstanding painting skills that I saw in my peers and instructors; I had done one semester
in the Post-Baccalaureate Program prior to entering the MFA (that had improved my
skill-set tremendously), but I still felt my painting skills needed improvement. I now
understand some of these feelings to be warranted; however, some were a value judgment
about style. I tended to compare myself to more highly realist painters and wonder why
my paintings did not look like theirs. Over the course of the program, I have come to
35 embrace the way that I paint—as a perceptual painter who balances chromatic grays with
saturated colors and a composer of pictures broad in scope and meaning.
I am a much more confidant painter than when I entered the program in January
2012; I see how my ideas have evolved and how the forms of my paintings follow their
content. I now have an aptitude for composing with multiple figures in deep space, which
enables me to realize ambitious ideas, such as Come to the Table (Figure 4), and I am
willing to approach more deeply emotional subject matter, as can be seen in Home is Not
(Figure 3).
The program has also sharpened my writing and speaking skills. I never
considered myself to be a writer; however, developing both my written thesis and an
academic paper, which I recently presented at the Verge Conference: Art + Narrative at
Trinity Western University in Langely, Canada, has changed my outlook on this. Similar
to painting, I enjoy whittling away at words in order to articulate a thought. Additionally,
the MFA critiques afforded me an opportunity to develop skills at offering criticism—
engaging with others’ work and being able to draw parallels between their work, other
artists, art history, literary references, or the like is a valuable skill and one I will use as
an educator.
In the future, I would like to experiment more extensively with different surface
preparations. I want to try a method that artist Bruce Herman follows, the traditional
method of applying very thin layers of gesso to wood panel, sanding finely between
layers, for about twenty layers, and then applying a layer of bole over the gesso. Finally,
he guilds the surface with gold leaf or silver leaf, and then begins the painting atop of
that. When I look at Herman’s paintings I really engage in the physicality of them—the
36 paint and the gold leaf, and the clay—and the actual time that it took to make them. I am
interested in trying something similar.
I want to continue delving into issues of family. I want to make paintings that bear
witness to the beauty I perceive in light, color, shape, form, and line, but which also
reveal truths about family, community, and the human condition—to make something
that is invisible visible. To bear witness requires me to be present and to allow myself to
be moved by something; as an artist, and as a follower of Christ, I feel that that is what I
am called to do.
37 WORKS CITED
Babette’s Feast. Dir. Gabriel Axel. MGM Home Entertainment, 1987. DVD.
Berry, Wendell. The A rt of the Commonplace: The A grarian Essays of W endell Berry.
Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2002. Print.
Brueggemann, Walter. Prophetic Imagination. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978. Print.
Chayat, Sherry. Life Lessons. The A rt of Jerome W itkin. Syracuse: Syracuse University
Press, 1994. Print.
Chayat, Sherry. “Conclusion.” Drawn to Paint: The A rt of Jerome W itkin. Curator. Aiken,
Edward A. Syracuse: Syracuse University Art Galleries, 2011. Print.
Fried, Michael. Menzel’s Realism. New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2002.
Print.
Hawthorne, Mrs. Charles W. (compiler). Hawthorne on Painting. New York: Dover
Publications, Inc., 1960. Print.
Lowly, Tim. “Of Icons, the Renaissance, and the Mysterious Disorientation of Disability:
An Art Exhibit and Interview with Tim Lowly.” Interview by Heather Smith.
theotherjournal.com. The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. 27 April,
2009. Web. 20 August. 2013.
Newcomer, Carrie. (2012). Holy as the Day is Spent. On Kindred Spirits (CD). Beverly
Hills, CA: Rounder Records.
Noel, Scott. Notes on the paintings of Sangram Majumdar. Form and Fiction: Sangram
Majumdar. New York: The Painting Center, 2012. Print.
Sheldrake, Philip. Spaces for the Sacred, Place, Memory, and Identity. Baltimore: The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. Print.
38 Wiseman, Mary Bittner. “Vermeer and the Art of Silence.” The Journal of A esthetics and
A rt Criticism. Vol. 64, No. 3 (Summer 2006): 317-24. Web. 9 October. 2012.
Witkin, Jerome. Laguna College of Art + Design, Laguna Beach, CA. 12 November
2012. Guest Artist Lecture.
39 APPENDIX A
Plate 1. Kari Dunham, From the Beginning, 2012, oil on mahogany panel, 45”x30” 40 Plate 2. Kari Dunham, His Letter Came on a Tuesday, 2013, oil on mahogany panel, 30”x45” 41 Plate 3. Kari Dunham, Home is Not, 2013, oil on linen, 53”x76” 42 Plate 4. Kari Dunham, Come to the Table (in process), 2013, oil on linen, 56”x80” 43 Plate 5. Kari Dunham, Come to the Table (drawing), 2013, charcoal on paper, 38”x54” 44 Plate 6. Kari Dunham, Working with Dad, 2013, oil on linen, 11”x9” 45 Plate 7. Kari Dunham, Thanksgiving (sketch), 2010, ink on paper, 9”x24” 46 Plate 8. Kari Dunham, The Table (sketch), 2012, graphite on paper, 11”x4” 47 Plate 9. Kari Dunham, Dinner Conversation, 2012, charcoal on paper, 18”x24” 48 Plate 10. Kari Dunham, SE 89th Avenue, 2013, oil on mahogany panel, 12”x18”