Divided
Samantha Groenestyn
- Sitters: Self-portrait
- Medium: Oil on Linen
- Dimensions: 35cm x 105cm
- Representation: This artist represents themselves
About the artist and artwork
Hailing from Far North Queensland, Samantha Groenestyn trained as a philosopher, then a painter.
Her philosophical inquiries into aesthetics drive her practice, which is largely observational and grounded in experience.
Ofthe portrait she says, ‘I began the drawing with the full figure but had the idea that she would be split down the middle, with her other half spliced and suspended on the wrong side in a strange tension.’
‘The dressmaker’s dummy floats without its base, defying gravity too. Though graceful, the dummy has that vacant, neutral, ideal femininity; it is faceless and dismembered. The wooden mask hovers proudly between the two halves but it, too, is a sham. The full-blooded figure stands in defiance of these silent forms, asserting herself, however precariously.’
In learning to paint, Samantha’s teachers instructed her to take the strong stance seen in the portrait: two feet on the ground, confident and self-possessed.
‘I felt grounded and steady in this posture and worked to bring this strength into my lines. I paint those lines directly onto the canvas–no pencil, no charcoal–chasing that big energy in the broad sweep of the initial lines.’
“I felt grounded and steady in this posture and worked to bring this strength into my lines."
Behind the scenes
I began the drawing with the full figure but had the idea that she would be split down the middle, with her other half spliced and suspended on the wrong side in a strange tension. The dressmaker’s dummy floats without its base, defying gravity too. Though graceful, the dummy has that vacant, neutral, ideal femininity; it is faceless and dismembered. The wooden mask hovers proudly between the two halves but it, too, is a sham. The full-blooded figure stands in defiance of these silent forms, asserting herself, however precariously.
When I learned to paint, my teachers instructed me to take this strong stance: two feet on the ground, confident and self-possessed. I felt grounded and steady in this posture and worked to bring this strength into my lines. I paint those lines directly onto the canvas–no pencil, no charcoal–chasing that big energy in the broad sweep of the initial lines.
An academic career is also precarious and demands this same brazen confidence. I’ve watched extremely well-respected women philosophers tremble before presenting excellent work, saying their body could never assume a strong pose before an audience. I like the idea that inhabiting your body in a particular way invites your mind to follow–helps you feel what it is like to feel confident and allows you to be confident. I bring this idea with me when I tutor biomedical students in ethics at the University of Queensland. A table full of young men will weigh an ethical dilemma and a pregnant woman becomes inconceivably invisible to them: no more than a vehicle for a foetus. If there is a young woman in the group, she will tentatively challenge them, and possibly humanise their decision. We must hold the posture. The second we hesitate, we are silenced, erased.
