At the suggestion of the person who leads our life-drawing group (normally!) I was looking today at some of the photographs of Man Ray. Their interest lies in large measures in the ambiguity that surrounds his images. At first sight a double-take is often necessary in order to work out exactly what is represented in them. One of my favourites was a composition consisting a a close-up shot of a person’s limbs, taken on a pebble beach somewhere, shot in such a way as to make it highly doubtful at first sight as to whether one is looking at a pile of stones.
This idea merits further exploration, and with the kind cooperation of my wife as a model I took a few pictures this afternoon, in which I tried to explore this idea of visual ambiguity. One of the shots pleases me, in which just the shoulders and head are in view with her hands resting each on the opposite shoulder. At first sight it is unclear as to whose hands they are. Is somebody else standing in front of her?
The concept of ambiguity as a positively useful element in visual images I am sure merits further exploration. Certainly it emphasises something on which I have often commented in this blog, namely, the positive importance of the viewer in relation to all art. Faced with any picture the viewer is required to decode it, even where that task might seem rather simple and obvious. Looking at art is invariably, to some extent, a kind projective test. The famous Rorschach tests are only an extreme version of this. It isn’t often the case, however, that as artists we attempt deliberately to draw attention to this aspect of the art experience.
It is only with hindsight that it strikes me that ambiguity has, in fact, been an element in several of my recent images. All kinds of ideas are muttering in the back of my mind, just out of earshot at the moment. I wonder what they are trying to tell me.