Spegling och skapande : En studie i Lena Cronqvists "Målaren och hennes modell"

Sammanfattning: For their self-representation painters are referred to the use of existing codes of representation. These codes can be modified by displacement of conventional meaning. In the historically central discourse of the figure of the artist, the model functions as a complementary aspect of the painter. If, as in the work analysed in this thesis, the conventional code is changed into "the painter and her model", the outcome will be not only a deconstruction of the concept of "the painter and his model", but also a new meaning.Cronqvist (b. in 1938) represents herself with paint brushes and a hand mirror. Whereas the brush signifies the artist's potential for creation, the mirror introduces an imaginary aspect of the painter. The mirror is a critical factor in self-portraiture in the sense that the mirrored image may convey both familiar and unfamiliar aspects of its spectator. The mirror is a source of ambiguity. I maintain that the mirroring theme relates to three separate discourses; Vanity, Narcissus and Medusa. The theme of Medusa provides a productive, if not all-inclusive, context for the interpretation of the androgynously signified body of the painter, of the mirror face and of the petrification of the painter's body.Cronqvist also investigates the potential for representing herself within the codes of the nude, a metaphor for art, which is here characterized by ambivalent gestures and the ambiguous whiteness signifying the untouched picture surface. While an imaginary aspect of the maternal body can inspire male artists, it tends to represent a source of ambivalence to the female artist.