The Withdrawing Image. An Artistic Research into the Active Resistance of Painting as Medium

Abstract

While contemporary visual culture is characterised by transparency and immediacy, this research examines the critical potential of certain images that not only withdraw, but draw the viewer along with them. Their withdrawing quality is explored through a collection of art philosophical essays and a series of paintings. The essays are built on (visual) metaphors to approach the withdrawing quality of several artworks across history from various angles. In Aline Verstraten's artistic practice, the specific role of painting as medium in the possible emergence of the withdrawing quality was explored.