30015868
BA Art & Psychology
Statement
Documentation
Statement
My paintings aim to use a horror aesthetic to create an anxiety-inducing experience as a way of reflecting societal traumas, attempting to capture a universal response towards turbulent and often terrifying events we experience. My investigation began with the intent of choosing a singular political issue to narrow in on and reflect through a series of oil paintings through a horror aesthetic. However, when delving in and attempting to pinpoint which issue I wanted to address, it became overwhelming and fear-inducing, seeing endless masses of brutalities and sufferings throughout humanity that are also depicted in everyday news and social medias. Rather than continuing to isolate a single political issue, the theme of fear and disturbing became the core of my work as a way of confronting societal traumas through an ambiguous view point.
“My Bodily Remains” by Tai Shani is an installation piece with vibrant red lighting, The work reflects ideas about grief and societal change drawing in concepts of healing and resistance influenced by sci-fi literature and horror films.¹ Moving around the installation brings a variety of subjects and multimedia pieces into view. When creating “Bon Appetit”, a polyptych of four 30cm X 30cm canvases, I experimented with a red hue instead of burnt sienna’s and burnt umber’s used throughout and took an approach adding in varying subjects and perspectives inspired by Shani’s immersive installation.
Throughout my work, including my final series “You Are What You Eat”, consisting of two 100cm X 30cm stretched canvases and one 100xm X 150cm stretched canvas, I used colours and figures in reference to horror aesthetics seen within works by Zdzisław Beksiński, a polish oil painter using hues of burnt umber and burnt sienna to depict contemporary surrealist hellscapes and figures.² The decision to reference Beksiński’s work was due to the use of these oil colours seen throughout horror aesthetics, being desaturated and dreary but also due to the background of Beksiński as he was murdered by his acquaintance, someone he trusted over the reasons of money issues thus falling into the topic of brutality within humanity even by those we may deem close to us over another societal issue of money trouble.³
The use of symbols and context of the work was inspired by Alison Katz who includes repeat symbols and imagery having a conversation through her works addressing ambiguity of subjectivity involving concepts such as autobiography, commodity culture and information systems.⁴ Due to this Kaz’s work also takes a broad approach by using everyday symbolism such as cabbages, noses, elevators, ect to have diverse contextualisation based on the imagery and placements of the work, this is something I am also using within my own work through the depiction of food, plates, bowls, and darker imagery such as severed fingers therefore juxtaposing basic necessity with a form of brutality showing how they are both constants.
It was important for me to find a balance of something unsettling that also becomes something people can relate to through having the context be ambiguous but unifying. Involving both the equipment and food from the context of Katz’s work as something vital to living therefore is necessary for life and a form that all the audience can connect with. By combining this with a still-life horror aesthetic, the oil painting has a more surprising and unnerving context once noticing the elements among the food that are out of place. Referencing Shani’s work including a range of styles and contrasting the over detailed and more obvious symbols, is a unidentifiable figure inspired by Beksiński’s work. The ambiguity of the figure feeds into the anxiety-inducing theme of the work due to the lack in context this figure provides. When locating the paintings, inspired by Katz’s work, the paintings must use the space to increase the fear context. This means having the larger figures above the audience using the psychological theory of height, where one who is taller and larger than another is more intimidating and a heightened threat.⁵ The use of height theory for the figures while keeping the expected symbols of food at eye-level makes the paintings more unnerving due to having this large figure looming over the audience while they look at the piece and more terrifying once noticing the more violent features of the painting.
Overall I have studied a range of artists and experimented with colour, painting style, digital works and texture upon canvas in order to portray the broad and subjective topic of societal trauma. A horror aesthetic was included to make this display as fear-inducing as possible.
Bibliography:
¹ “MY BODILY REMAINS.” n.d. TAI SHANI.
https://www.taishani.com/cac.
² Scalone, Lisa. “Zdzisław Beksiński in 10 Paintings.” DailyArt Magazine, February 20, 2024.
https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/beksinskis-10-artworks/.
³ “Zdzisław Beksiński | Artnet,” n.d.
https://www.artnet.com/artists/zdzislaw-beksinski/.
⁴ “Allison Katz Joins Hauser & Wirth - Hauser & Wirth.” 2022. Hauser & Wirth. 2022.
https://www.hauserwirth.com/news/39431-allison-katz-joins-hauser-wirth/.
⁵ “The Psychology of Height.” 2025. Changingminds.org. 2025.
https://www.changingminds.org/explanations/perception/articles/psychology_height.htm.