Homeless in Space

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It was without a plan that painting the homeless began, other than the expectation of an emotional catharsis. There had to be meaning in the clump of signifiers. A direction would certainly emerge from the confusion.

Academic art students draw or paint a human model, posed in front of a back wall, optionally draped for a touch of color. I tried this approach with the derelicts I saw immobile on the sidewalk. It did not achieve the intended effect of an academic study. Any reclining pose is a challenge. A figure in a fallen posture can look like it will itself fall off the canvas, off-the-wall, literally onto the floor.

An academic painting of anything other than a human model is a nature morte, a still life, an inanimate object. That term comes from the study of anatomy, corpses, to be exact, at the core of the academic curriculum since Leonardo. A dead body, unlike a sleeping person, has a distinctive appearance. It is an object. We do not relate to an object the way we relate to the living.

We feel no concern, in passing, that a derelict is dead. We know he is not. Move on. Taking these figures out of context was a mistake. Context makes the difference between alive and dead. The litter around derelicts tells us more than we wish to know on a visceral level. A wine bottle, or beer can, means he's drunk. If the bum lays upon a sheet of corrugated cardboard we know he is camping. Without any such clues in the painting the figure's state is ambiguous.

On the other side of scale, too many details, too much background, diminishes the importance of the figure. Realism is less a product of pure creativity than judicious editing. Airbrushing particulars that do not support the narrative may not be perfectly honest -but this isn't journalism. It is artistic non-fiction.

Having deviated thus far from the academic ideal of art, a critical study had to be made of the sources of the subject. Not just any figure laying supine on the sidewalk qualifies. Exception is taken to posing by professional (or amateur) models, as actual derelicts laying on the ground. Here, attention to details of context make all the difference. Washed face and hands, clean clothes, and recently store-bought, in good condition, all make the authenticity of the source image doubtful.

I insist on authenticity in my art. Early, I attempted to paint what I assumed were obviously fake subjects. I even considered posing as one, myself, taking my own photograph, as well, by means of the camera shutter time delay. They looked like paintings of fake derelicts. The judgment "fake" is as fatal to art as plagiarism is to writing. The painting of a derelict may be original, but if the subject is posed, it's not an authentic work of art. 

It's also not realism. Looking at my paintings of derelicts one might ask why the person is on the ground? That's a good question, a philosophical question, because no person should be so miserable. It is an academic question, because there may be more than one cause, more than one way of interpreting the context. My interpretation is the painting. The painting is itself an interpretation.

The graphic art of Brian Higgins can be viewed at: https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/8-brian-higgins
One-of-a-kind works of art can be viewed at: https://www.saatchiart.com/account/artworks/1840403

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