Deborah Marks: Unspoken Moments

Posted: 03 Sep 2011

This latest work from Deborah Marks is about the conflict of an internal and external psychological dilemma:

''This involves the conflict of the self and the persona - on the one hand the self, with vulnerabilities and desires, and on the other, the persona, operating in a role of power play ‘through the mask’.

This conflict within the self parallels a universal situation we all endure, creating a dilemma where internal drives are set against the competing demands of the external world. Tension resides in the moment prior to the ego regulating the id and the superego, at which point a compromise is reached which is an acceptable behaviour in the world. This prior moment is a liminal zone, a transition of being on the "threshold" between two contradictory existential planes. In this case they are psychological. Freud encapsulates the mediating process occurring beyond this threshold in his statement: ‘The ego is the mediator between the two contradictory terms, the instinctive corporeal strivings of the id on one hand and the demands and requirements of reality or civilization for the modification, control or postponement of instinctual satisfaction on the other.’1

Within the imagery of the artwork I am seeking to create the psychological tension which is inherent in these conflicted states. In this discord there is an unspoken moment in which the figures are caught between two opposing demands, and are rendered mute. Many conflicts are involved here: first, between the self, with its inherent vulnerability, and the persona which presents an empowered position; second, the position between action and reflection which in this case renders the figures static and mute; third, the internal drives of sensuality that are restrained within codes of morality. All these conflicts leave the figures powerless and immobilized. My intention is to portray the threshold between these conflicted states in a moment of immobilization within the unspoken drama.

Within these images I am seeking to represent the relationship between the interior and the exterior in which my subject’s body becomes an extension of the expression of the psyche.''  -  Deborah Marks

1 S. Freud, The Ego and the Id (Martino Fine Books, London, 1927), p.54.

Venue: Charles Hewitt Gallery

Hours: Monday - Saturday 10 - 6

Exhibition runs 22 September - 10 October 2011

Images from top:

Deborah Marks, The Judgement

Deborah Marks, Contemplating Transcendence

Deborah Marks, Threshold

Deborah Marks, Unspoken Moment

Deborah Marks, Underground

Click here for further information on Charles Hewitt Gallery .