Female Modern British Artists Wikipedia Editathon: My Experience

Female Modern British Artists Wikipedia Editathon: My Experience

For me, like most people I would guess, Wikipedia is an information source that I consult weekly if not daily. I don’t think it’d be a stretch to say that most of us would be a lot more lost without it. With it being such a wealth of information and so readily available, I easily forget that each and every Wikipedia entry is written by a living, breathing person. The editathon served to remind me that this free font of knowledge, is a human product that has taken care and effort by a community of editors around the world. So in being reminded of that, it was nice to be able to give back by contributing something myself.

I was quite shocked to learn that only 17% of the 1.5 million Wiki biographies written in English are of women. I want to thank Borough Road Gallery and Wikimedia, for providing an opportunity to contribute to the changing of that statistic.

The process of writing the article was harder than I had thought it would be. I chose to write about Rachel Nicholson and was surprised to find a very private individual with very little online presence - this coupled with the need for authoritative sources made the beginning of the writing experience a little frustrating. By the end of the editathon, I’d made progress and gained even more appreciation for the efforts of Wikipedia editors.

All in all, it was a very wholesome experience. As a young freelance creative just starting out, I’m feeling the pressure to specialise, to tie myself to one area of expertise, when all I want to be doing is experimenting. It was somewhat serendipitous that I stumbled upon Rachel Nicholson among a long list of names; Nicholson didn’t become a painter until she was in her forties. Being the daughter of two famous artists, she resisted the pressures to become an artist until it was right for her. Learning this was reassuring and calmed a few of my ‘recent graduate jitters’.

I didn’t quite get to finish my piece, and as all articles go through a checking process, a Wiki bio of Rachel Nicholson is still “coming soon”. I’d really encourage anyone who has some spare time, to get editing an article themselves because it’s such a simple and easy process, only requiring time and interest in the subject matter.

Lennie.

www.lenniehoward.co.uk

Instagram: @lenniehoward

Behind the Painting

The frames and mounts of paintings are themselves unique canvases of hidden detail. Our tendency to overlook the effects of framing discounts their having existed for as long as pictures have been mobile. The French post-structuralist Louis Marin described the picture frame as a device which “renders the work autonomous in visible space”, putting “representation into a state of exclusive presence.” When framed, the painted picture becomes a worthy object of contemplation and demands absolute attention. Simultaneously, the frame effaces itself, becoming obsolete in the eyes of the viewer, entirely separate from the work of art it borders.

While frames have historically been designed by artists to accentuate their pictures or chosen by patrons and museums in line with current fashions, frames are primarily physical supports which protect paintings against their surroundings. The frame’s role is one of mediation. Paintings derive the visual autonomy identified by Marin from the exclusive physical and symbolical safety the frame provides, a condition which relates back to what Walter Benjamin had previously characterised in 1936 as the ‘aura’ of the work of art.

Rooted in an object’s authentic presence in time and space, and the physical changes it has undergone since its creation, the ‘aura’ is perhaps most legible in the frame of a painting which has both facilitated and borne witness to the work’s movements between people and institutions. For Benjamin, the irreproducibility of these conditions reveals the power of a work of art as historical testament.

By documenting the backs of paintings and drawings, this series brings the Borough Road Collection Archive into focus as being comprised of mobile and changeable three-dimensional objects that have each passed through different hands to arrive in the current collection. The diverse materials used by the artists themselves, the size and style of frames, and the presence of various labels and notations identifying craftsmen and galleries together constitute individual time capsules to be unpacked and interpreted. Utilising reproductive technology in this post-internet context serves to re-articulate rather than wither the ‘aura’ of the artworks in the collection, exhibiting a side to them rarely seen by the public.