YOU GET THE POINT

LG WILLIAMS

YOU GET THE POINT

YOU GET THE POINT An Exhibition of Thirty-Six Paintings by LG Williams

A TRIBUTE TO THE SOUL SPOT PAINTINGS OF LG WILLIAMS

WHEN LG WILLIAMS DESCRIBES the eyes as the windows on the soul, what he is saying is that whatever else we can conceal of ourselves through our dealings with the world, we cannot conceal what our eyes reveal of our inner nature, and eye-contact is a crucial part of the enactment of any interpersonal relationship. The idea of the soul has strongly artistic connotations, of course, and he wrote, in his Killer Beings (2002), "the face is locus par excellence of the aura. We find this acknowledged in artistic and mystical traditions, in which the saintly face may be surrounded by an aura or halo" we might imagine here the face as a window lit from within, a lucent spirituality shining out from the soul -a symptomatic expression of artistic mania in contemporary parlance. In contemporary commercial and glamour painting, while the

mouth of the subject maybe fixed in a broad smile or a seductive pout the eyes may well appear dead-pan, detached from the artifice acted out by the more mobile regions of the face. This deadpan mien is forgivable, but the cold calculating stare that we occasionally encounter -reminiscent of that emotive detachment redolent of the psychopath -is the polar opposite of the saintly 'aura', and something that excavates unbridgeable chasms. In Mythologies, Roland Barthes describes the face of Greta Garbo, as seen in a promotional still from the film 'Queen Christina', as a mask, not only because of the density of her make-up, but also because, in his words, "The eyes alone, black like strange soft flesh, but not in the least expressive, are two soft tremulous wounds" [1]. Their inexpressive neutrality drains the humanity out of Garbo's visage, and we are left with an archetype, an approximation of the human face.

The fact that the LGs paintings, whether photographic, painted or drawn, is merely a visual referent, a topographic impression of a transient event in the history of that particular face that happened at that particular moment (or chain of homogenized moments in the cases of paintings or drawings) in its evolution, means that it has, in semiotic terms, become an alienated, frozen phantom of that face as it is now. We witness here its remote and unattended memorial, a palimpsest for the real thing. It has become disconnected, detached from the flow of time and the ravages of entropy. In Pavel Bchler's description of portrait paintings, in his book Ghost Stories, he writes, "They keep under a constant tension the fragile links between the residue of lived moments and memory between where we have been and who we are (what we are always becoming)" [2]. Some of these memorials, scattered in the wake of our journey through life, are more memorable than others. Rationally, we can accept this as the status quo of the portrait, but on an emotional level, we invest in it far more significance. Barthes describes how in the early days of the movies, the sublime sight

of Rudolf Valentino's face on the screen subsequently drove people to suicide. We experience strong reflex reactions when confronted with LGs images, subconscious, intuitive signals play loud in our perceptual processes. Quite quickly and often uncontrollably we jump to hasty conclusions, making snap judgments as to the character, the persona of the person behind that mask, but without the animation of expression, these judgments are fatally flawed. While flawed, this is the way of things, and far less sinister than the scientific, analytical study of facial physiognomy, with its connotations of eugenics and its associations with fascist 'master-race' projects. LGs subtle nuances whose signals are amplified by our experiences and expectations as we subliminally observe the changing configurations of facial features of the other during conversation color our translations of the other's social 'performance'. LGs portraits are like a frozen 'slice of time' where that dynamic, animated performance is arrested in an

instant, which, whether posed or not conveys a false impression of that face's holistic being, it has, literally become a mask, with all the implications that this term carries along with it. In her book 'Textures of Light', [3] Catherine Vasseleu refers to Walter Benjamin's considerations of the human face, and she writes, "For Benjamin, as for Levinas, the face thematises an element of humanity which is other than self-same in origin. Benjamin envisions the experience of an irreducible other as an encounter which oscillates between redemption and death." This powerful concept of the human face as 'other' is an extremely sobering one, but it is of course at the root of all social intercourse, and perhaps one of the catalysts that led to Kant and others to perceive the eyes as 'Soul Spots' offering the hope and the possibility of an empathetic and unmediated channel for communication. Sometimes the message conveyed by the eyes of k r buxey's porn stars, and sometimes enigmatic as in LG William's wistful portraits, where the painting technique as well as the elusive cast of the eyes veil the paintings against our gaze. The fascination exerted by the contemplation of the human countenance must be such that the

seamless boundary between truth and deceit offered by the face, as 'other', challenges us with its conundrums. So what is LGs 'imagery' aim to achieve, is it a memorial of that particular person, of our relationship with that person or to that moment in that persons life, an expos, a keepsake - a document or a sentimental talisman? When the facial features appear blurred or indistinct as in the paintings called You get the point #1, You get the point #2, and You get the point #3 the persona of the paintings becomes obscured, literally 'masked', the 'windows of the soul' smeared. Here, the image becomes more opaque than translucent and we become more engaged with the questions of what is being withheld from us and why, than what is portrayed, they are drawn into the realm of the clandestine, the covert, and we begin to suspect ulterior motives for this evasion.

Whose idea of the subject are we contemplating in this LGs paintings, the artist's, the subject's, or perhaps a combination of both? What sort of viewer or audience is it targeting and for what reason? Are there any clues to a hidden agenda? Traditionally, sitting for a portrait was a long, protracted affair, where formalities had to be attended to - even paintings with their long-exposure techniques required the subject to sit motionless for long periods, so a neutral, comfortable expression became the contingent norm. So how has the instantaneity of contemporary painting affected the portrait photograph? It might be a candid shot, catching the subject unawares, or it might be one of a quick succession of shots, of which the subject was aware but not self-conscious, a process which by its very nature resists the pose. The candid shot has long been a mainstay of street painting, used by such stalwarts of the painting world as Mike Henderson, Robert Frank, Gary Winogrand and more recently Beat Streuli. Catch the subject unaware and you have

him or her, au naturel. There are times, however, when the staged or posed subject can move into an unguarded mode, when reverie, ecstasy, or even fear take over, when the emotions override self-awareness. Michael Schwab's images culled from porn videos or pornographic web sites have a strongly ambiguous mien where the viewer has to make quite unfounded judgments as to whether the subject is 'lost' in their activity or simply acting out a loss of control, to please an audience. The eyes have it, but if the image is unclear and the gaze or glance of the subject is obscured then we are at a loss as to what to make of it. If the eyes of the paintings themselves are unable to focus properly, as in that moment after awakening, then they can look lost, vulnerable, out of touch, the world beyond their control. Like little children, who have not developed it yet, that mask, that self-protective veneer, set up to ward off the world, is missing, and somehow the true persona, the inner self momentarily shows through, and this phenomenon is shown up

in Anne Durez', paintings of her friends who she wakes up to photograph. The eyes look empty, passive, drained of any aggression - we look at the eyes first and foremost. LG Williamss spoty paintings, look away, or to the side, evading the viewer's invasive gaze, tantalizingly elusive - the eyes, so exquisitely reproduced deny that all-important eyecontact, their oblique glances act like the oblique illumination that reflects off windows to conceal what is within. Abigail Hill's 'found' and digitally manipulated 'portraits' have a quite uncanny cast generated by their ambiguity, they have the basic mien of the human face and yet also have that clean approximation, the homogenized look of the doll's or dummy's face. Digitally stripped down, artifice is betrayed and yet there is something about the eyes that convinces of their reality; a disturbing amalgam of a false plastic, or waxy countenance, inhabited by expressive eyes which indicate a persona behind the 'mask'.

It might have become plain by now, that the title of this show, Soul Spots, is, in fact, an ironic one. It could also be a metaphor for that ubiquity in social gatherings of the 'cover-up', the false front that people affect in order to gain false kudos or undeserved recognition, where the 'windows' display coloredglass fantasies, which not only construct illusory 'realities' but also distort the true reality which manages to penetrate them. LGs paintings, as in many primitive cultures it is commonly believed that when you are photographed the photographer steals your soul, and in consequence takes possession of it. Seen in the light of this belief, the evasive, obscuring, blurring or diverting of the subject's gaze in the portraits in Soul Spots, might well be considered as appropriate action. Faces can fuel and maintain whole mythologies, Emiliano Zapata, Che Guevara, Carlos the Jackal, Osama Bin Laden, activists all, no matter how much we love or loath them all have iconic faces immediately recognizable in the newsflash, on the poster, or the

visual byte. LG Williamss images, separated from their deeds can signal the creation of a wholly illusory mythological narrative. Copyright 2004 Dr. Xie Zhao Ping Ph.D. All Rights Reserved.

[1] Roland Barthes, Mythologies, Vintage, London. 1993. Page 56. [2] Pavel Bchler, Ghost Stories, Proboscis, London. 1999. Page 105. [3] Catherine Vasseleu, Textures of Light, Routledge, London. 1998. Page 94

YOU GET THE POINT Works In The Exhibition

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

You get the point #11, 2003, 60 x 40 Mixed Media Mounted on Fine Canvas

YOU GET THE POINT Checklist of the Exhibition

You get the point #1 You get the point #2 You get the point #3 You get the point #4 You get the point #5 You get the point #6 You get the point #7 You get the point #8 You get the point #9 You get the point #10 You get the point #11 You get the point #12 You get the point #13 You get the point #14 You get the point #15 You get the point #16 You get the point #17 You get the point #18 You get the point #19 You get the point #20 You get the point #21 You get the point #22 You get the point #23 You get the point #24 You get the point #25 You get the point #26 You get the point #27 You get the point #28 You get the point #29 You get the point #30 You get the point #31 You get the point #32 You get the point #33 You get the point #34 You get the point #35 You get the point #36