Friday 12 April 2013

The Rashomon Effect

Max bought me a beautiful magnifying glass for my birthday, which is just what I needed for my next but one painting.
It's about an encounter my grandmother had with an old flame when she was nearly ninety and he was eighty, at a prearranged meeting in the Royal Station Hotel, Hull. They had been engaged sixty years before but then both married different partners. He then contacted my grandmother again when he heard she had been widowed. My mother and I both witnessed this encounter and we all had different ideas about the possible outcome.
While thinking this might be an interesting concept for a painting I happened to see the 1950s Japanese film 'Rashoman' which shows the same story but through the eyes of the different characters involved.  The Rashomon Effect, as it is called, gave me the idea of how I might portray my people. To show my grandmothers story in a painting I am going to use lenses of different strengths but looking at the same image. One each, for my grandmother, her old flame, my mother and me. Hence the new magnifying glass.

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