Helen Johnson
Late mirror stage, 2023
Synthetic polymer paint on canvas
221 x 169 cm
87 x 66 1/2 in
87 x 66 1/2 in
Further images
'The jubilant infant described by French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist Jacques Lacan in his article on “The Mirror Stage,” when he first recognises his own specular image and conceptualises himself as...
'The jubilant infant described by French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist Jacques Lacan in his article on “The Mirror Stage,” when he first recognises his own specular image and conceptualises himself as a person in the world, independent of his mother. In adolescence, another sort of mirroring can emerge, a sense of oneself found through mimesis, a connection with an other. The memory of this state is where this painting begins.
There is a moment where the swirling ribbon of one register within the painting passes between the pinched fingers of a figure on another register – the two pictorial levels come into a logical relation in a way that has not happened in my paintings before.
I think of this painting, on another level, as being to do with working as an art therapist and an artist as I do; it necessitates shifting between the positions of observer and creator, of producing a mirror image of oneself in order to hold space for others.'
- Helen Johnson, October 2023
There is a moment where the swirling ribbon of one register within the painting passes between the pinched fingers of a figure on another register – the two pictorial levels come into a logical relation in a way that has not happened in my paintings before.
I think of this painting, on another level, as being to do with working as an art therapist and an artist as I do; it necessitates shifting between the positions of observer and creator, of producing a mirror image of oneself in order to hold space for others.'
- Helen Johnson, October 2023