Episode #5
Daniel Kelly and Rebecca Fortnum: A Different Kind of Looking, Recorded Live During a Haircut
A conversation about drawing, looking, and how a body of work actually begins, recorded live during a real haircut at DKUK, Peckham's mirrorless salon where art replaces mirrors. Rebecca Fortnum is an artist working in drawing and painting. She had just finished a show at DKUK: a set of large drawings, around a metre high, made from portrait sculptures she had come across in collections. The Louvre, the V&A, the Met, the Musée d'Orsay. All of them women. All of them looking down or looking away. She was interested in what it means to look at someone who does not look back. Which is why the drawings worked in here. You sit in a chair with no mirror in front of you, looking at a face that will not return your gaze. We talk about the difference between a portrait someone has paid for and a portrait of someone you are in a relationship with. About Rodin, and Sarah Bernhardt, who acted, sculpted, slept in a coffin and kept tigers. About carbon pencil, dot matrix printers, and drawing a rough clay maquette at five feet high so the body does the work instead of the face. If you are studying art, or trying to work out how a project starts, this one is for you. Rebecca took photographs on her phone for years without knowing why. It was only on a residency, with a bit of time, that she got them out and started asking what they had in common. The archive came first. The reason came later. This is an archive episode from before the podcast was filmed. Recorded in one take with the salon open, so there is a bit of Peckham going on in the background. Best enjoyed with headphones. ♦ Rebecca Fortnum: https://researchers.arts.ac.uk/3069-rebecca-fortnum ♦ Book at DKUK: dkuk.biz #Drawing #ContemporaryArt #ArtStudents #ArtSchool #Rodin #PeckhamArt #CreativeLife
