Seeing in: Two-fold, three-fold?

Taking Richard Wollheim’s theory that seeing pictures is a two-fold experience of perception, (between the marked surface of the physical object and something depicted in its surface), this paper analyses my recent practice of creating artworks that place painted marks directly onto photographic prints of paint marks as a means of challenging the viewer as to what exactly is being seen in the picture. This conjoined photographic / painting practice also builds on Regina-Nino Kurg’s assertion that there is, in fact, a three-fold perceptual experience in seeing pictures. That is, seeing the physical object that is the picture - its configuration, whilst simultaneously seeing the object depicted in the picture - its representation, and the subject of the picture - its figuration. The research opens debates around the perceptual differences of seeing in the photographic image, which contains both representation and figuration; seeing in the painted image, which can contain either representation or representation and figuration; and seeing in the picture comprising of both the photographic and the painted. It is at the point of physical conjunction between photograph and paint that the question of multiple-‘foldness’ becomes particularly complex, and which this paper will begin to explicate. This particular research-based practice aims to illuminate an aspect of my overarching PhD research question, ‘To what degree can an art practice of painting onto digital photographic prints illuminate the ontological relationship between representational painting and photography in the digital age’?

Taking Richard Wollheim’s theory that seeing pictures is a two-fold experience of perception, (between the marked surface of the physical object and something depicted in its surface), this paper analyses my recent practice of creating artworks that place painted marks directly onto photographic prints of paint marks as a means of challenging the viewer as to what exactly is being seen in the picture.
This conjoined photographic / painting practice also builds on Regina-Nino Kurg’s assertion that there is, in fact, a three-fold perceptual experience in seeing pictures. That is, seeing the physical object that is the picture - its configuration, whilst simultaneously seeing the object depicted in the picture - its representation, and the subject of the picture - its figuration. The research opens debates around the perceptual differences of seeing in the photographic image, which contains both representation and figuration; seeing in the painted image, which can contain either representation or representation and figuration; and seeing in the picture comprising of both the photographic and the painted. It is at the point of physical conjunction between photograph and paint that the question of multiple-‘foldness’ becomes particularly complex, and which this paper will begin to explicate.
This particular research-based practice aims to illuminate an aspect of my overarching PhD research question, ‘To what degree can an art practice of painting onto digital photographic prints illuminate the ontological relationship between representational painting and photography in the digital age’?