Abstract

Painting from a photographic source had become a structure for me and I became intrigued as to how I interpreted it as an experience. By engaging in a hermeneutic-phenomenological study, I distinguished the spaces between the source and the product, and I revealed the meaning that is made from this process. By deconstructing and reevaluating my habitual way of creating a painting, I was able to understand the reasons why I use a photograph as reference in the studio. Since I take the photograph with the intention of painting it, I realized that the photograph not only informs my painting process, but the painting informs my photographic process as well. The two media are dependent on one another: the photograph is created for the painting; the painting is created in relation to it. They are different, yet similar, and there is a dialectical relationship between the two of them. My thesis question was: What is the dialogue between the painting and the photograph and how will exhibiting the two together emphasize the dialectical relationship that is present in my artistic process?