Repetitition and Difference: Torch

Image from my journal: Julie Clarke 1991.

Digital images of black and white paintings. Julie Clarke 1991.

We are almost certain that fire is precisely the first object, the first phenomena, on which the human mind reflected; among all phenomena, fire alone is sufficiently prized by prehistoric man to wake in him the desire for knowledge, and this is mainly because it accompanies the desire for love. (Gaston Bachelard)

Each art has its own imbricated techniques of repetition, the critical and revolutionary potential of which must reach the highest possible degree, to lead us from the dreary repetitions of habit to the profound repetitions of memory, and ultimately to the (symbolic) repetitions of death...  (Gilles Deleuze ‘Répétition et différence, 1968).

Repetition and Difference is a project that revisits an older body of work entitled Torch that I have never exhibited. It is an attempt to reanimate, restart or repeat. In 1991 two theoretical issues inspired the project. Firstly, my reading of Gaston Bachelard’s book, The Psychoanalysis of Fire (1968), which provided a rich analysis of the significance of fire to the human psyche—particularly life, death and expression. Secondly, I had an interest in the growing rhetoric of genetics and its reduction of human complexity to a fixed code. In my visual journal at that time I covered a page with multiple black and white photocopied images of a torch covered with a large red X (the mark made as a signature by those who cannot read or write, which homogenized their identity and erased their individuality—also X is a sex-determining chromosome ). Next to this image I wrote: 'multiple images are cellular compartments each containing their own unique characteristics – like genetic codes they differ slightly one from the other'. I was attempting to articulate that human difference was important and that it was through visual and written language that our difference and passion is expressed. Much of my creative endeavors have circulated around text and image, writing and art. The visual impetus for this project actually came from 1990 magazine photograph of Peter Garrett (Australian musician, environmentalist and politician) holding a torch.

After several journal entries I embarked on a series of 30 monochromatic paintings on 8” x 10” artist board (see examples above) that included similar elements—a torch, surrounded by amorphous shapes that could be perceived as stick figures of humans, horses, dogs, birds and planes—as hieroglyphs, or simply bits of information. Each successive painting provided a variation on the original, in that the size and location of the elements was slightly changed so that when placed side by side they appeared as distinct cells of an animation. Engaging in these paintings, which depicted difference and repetition affirmed for me ways in which meaning and language could be disrupted through mutation. This repetition and transmutation of the forms engaged on some level with genetics, technology and communication, since black mark making on a white ground is commonplace in writing, typing, photo-coping and film-making. Using black, white and shades of gray, rather than color enabled me to invert usual expectations of a flame, which evokes warmth, glow, fire and light. Indeed the paintings seemed to me at that time to be more about the language of painting and how we make meaning from limited forms – a comment I suppose on how genetics appears to try and fix human nature, rather than its boundlessness. 

In 2008, with the assistance of Community Media Services in Melbourne I digitally photographed the 30 paintings so that I could repeat existing images, manipulate them in Photoshop and create an animation.This proved very time consuming and is still not finished. I'd love to see the original paintings installed side by side on a wall. What I need to do is find a wall. I originally posted this entry on my blog in 2010, but have decided to re-post it.