Drawing as a phenomenological exploration of ritual
Date
2022
Authors
Valentine, Clark, author
Lehene, Marius, advisor
Lajarin-Encina, Aitor, committee member
Dineen, Mark, committee member
Brady, Shawn, committee member
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Abstract
Historically, drawing developed in conjunction with ritual practices. Beginning with cave paintings, where drawings were traced and retraced over generations, drawing developed as a performative element of ritual practice. Even into modern day, drawing is present in many ritual practices throughout the world. In defining ritual from a phenomenological perspective, specifically through the language of Martin Heidegger's book Being in Time, ritual embodies a process of uncovering the horizons of the world, which is the realm of one's understanding. Many of Heidegger's key ideas overlap ritualistic perspectives from ancient China, including the philosophy of Daoism and the ritual culture of Confucian philosophy. Through these, I am able to articulate the way in which my own studio practice and current body of work (2020 through publication) function as a subset of this methodology of mark-making as ritual. I explain the relationship between the ritual of my making within the studio setting and the ritual of looking, audience members perform in the gallery. This ritual of drawing embodies both ideas of being-in-the-world as well as providing paradigmatic examples of the transcendence of ritual into everyday life.
Description
Rights Access
Subject
mark-making
philosophy
ritual
phenomenology
drawing
religion