Art & Perception

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Painting From Life vs. From Photos

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I first posted this interview a year ago. Dan Bodner has continued with this work. A follow-up interview will appear soon.

To paint from a photograph is inherently different than painting from life. Some artists avoid photos, others use them, perhaps covertly, for practical reasons. But to American artist Dan Bodner, painting from photos is not merely a technique, but a way to focus on his role as an artist. I interviewed Bodner at his studio in Amsterdam.

Question: When you work from photographs, do you ever ask yourself, what is the point of making the painting, when the image already exists in the photo?

Bodner: No. A photo is a record of a moment that has passed, a dead moment. I don’t feel that I own the image as a photograph until I paint it as a painting. The photo itself always refers to the past. But a painting of the photo is a creation, which goes on living. The painting defines its own continuing moment in time.

Question: Does painting go beyond the goal of simply making an image?

Bodner: What painting is for me is part of human desire. Every kid smears his food, or shit, and that is really connected to what painting is. A kid makes a mark and has the satisfaction of knowing “I made this and it will stay there.” For an adult I think it is connected to fear of death, which is innate. And it is connected to the desire to procreate. As you get older it gets existential, of course. To take things out of you and put them into the world, there is an absolute satisfaction in that. To do this from a photo emphasizes the act of creation, bringing life to something dead.

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In the next post more about how Dan Bodner uses photos, his subjects and his methods

An issue that has affected the plastic arts of virtually every culture over time is that of visibility, as art has a persistent tendency to be seen. Many attempts have been made to deal with this without any real measure of success. For example, glass as a medium was heralded as a remedy until it was pointed out that, while one could see through the glass, one could usually see the glass as well.

Other initiatives have been undertaken, including a number of experiments with fabric. The extinguishing of lamps has long been employed, as has the closing of doors and windows. These practices have often been criticized as effectively throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but continue to be widely employed. In the mid twentieth century, however, a paradigm shift resulted in at least one person puncturing a balloon in a museum and then declared the helium thus released to be a work of art. The event in question was greeted with the sound of one duck clapping

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