Working Through

Working Through Sandy Layton

MA Ceramics & Glass Royal College of Art June 2019 [8266 words]

© Sandy Layton, 2019

Table of contents Table of contents

i

List of illustrations

ii

Introduction

1

Conscious & Unconscious

2

Sandy Layton - I

15

Francesca Woodman

19

Sandy Layton - II

26

Dave Heath

29

Eugene Atget

36

Don McCullin

39

Conclusion

46

Bibliography

48

i © Sandy Layton, 2019

List of illustrations 1.

Eugene Atget, Magasin, Avenue des Gobelins (1925)

p.3

14. Sandy Layton, Staircase, Vauxhall Station (2018)

p.26

15. Sandy Layton, Whitgift Centre (2018)

p.28

2.

Eugene Atget, Magasin, Avenue des Gobelins (1925)

p.3

16. Dave Heath, Howard Crawford Jr., Korea (19531954)

3.

Francesca Woodman [Image from Angel Series]

p.6

p.31

17. Dave Heath, Janine Pommy Vega, Seven Arts Coffee Gallery, New York (1959)

4.

Don McCullin, Shell-shocked US Marine, The Battle of Hue (1968)

p.7

p.33

5.

El Lissitzky, Untitled (1924)

p.8

18. Dave Heath, Elevated in Brooklyn, New York City (1963)

p.34

6.

Francis Bacon, Portrait of Isabel Rawsthorne (1966)

p.12

19. Dave Heath, Washington Square, New York (1960)

p.34

7.

Francis Bacon, Study of Isabel Rawsthorne (1970)

p.12

20. Dave Heath, Vengeful Sister, Chicago (1956)

p.35

8.

Sandy Layton, Underpass (2019)

p.15

21. Dave Heath, Hell's Kitchen, NYC (1958)

p.35

9.

Francesca Woodman, Space, Providence Rhode Island (1976)

22. Eugene Atget, Pantheon (1924)

p.37

p.19

23. Eugene Atget, Quai-d’anjou (1924)

p.37

24. Eugene Atget, Staircase (undated)

p.39

25. Don McCullin, Creech Hill, close to the site of a Roman Fort or Temple (2017)

p.41

26. Don McCullin, Somerset, England (c.2000)

p.42 p.43

10. Francesca Woodman, Self-deceit Rome (1978)

p.19

11. Francesca Woodman, untitled, Boulder Colorado (1972-1975)

p.21

12. Francesca Woodman, untitled (self-portrait kneeling on a mirror) (1975)

p.22

13. Francesca Woodman, Untitled, Providence, Rhode Island (1976)

27. Don McCullin, Woods near my house, Somerset (c.1991)

p.24

28. Don McCullin, Fruit, butler sink, kitchen (pre1989)

p.45

ii © Sandy Layton, 2019

Introduction I propose in this paper to consider how the inner worlds of the photographers Francesca Woodman, Dave Heath, Eugene Atget and Don McCullin may have influenced their artwork, with particular reference to the effects of trauma.1 Woodman attempted suicide and suffered the consequent psychological trauma, while Heath, Atget and McCullin each experienced an actual traumatic event in childhood - the loss of a parent or, in the case of Atget and Heath, both parents. I will discuss possible parallels between the creation of photographic work and the process of coming to terms with trauma, and I will suggest that in creating their images these photographers were working through the effects of their traumatic experiences.2 My response to the work of the four photographers will necessarily be just that – my response, which will inevitably be formed through the lens of my own personality and experiences. It is for this reason that I will also include some of my own personal history, dreams3 and photographs as a thread through what follows. It could also be said that, in analysing the work of the four photographers, I am revealing more of my own inner world than that of the artists whose work I will be discussing. But, with Catherine Millet, I would argue that a subjective view of an artwork is valid and can contribute to the understanding of the work: “An understanding of the subjective and often buried links that bind us to a work of art is a perfectly valid means of access to an objective understanding of the work itself.” 4 °°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°° 1

2

3

4

“When we speak of the inner world this does not, of course, denote anything like the replica of the external world contained within us. The inner world is exclusively one of personal relations, in which nothing is external, in the sense that everything happening in it refers to the self, to the individual in whom it is a part.” Joan Rivière, ‘The Unconscious Phantasy of an Inner World Reflected in Examples from English Literature’, 33 International Journal of Psychoanalysis 33 (1952): 162 [reprinted in: New Directions in Psychoanalysis edited by M.Klein, P.Heimann & R.Money-Kyrle, (London, Karnac, 1977), pp.

346-349].

‘Working through’ is a term used to describe the process of re-addressing painful experiences so as to try to come to terms with them. By working through painful experiences as part of a mourning process, the pain becomes tolerable and muted.

Freud believed that through interpreting our dreams we could gain a deeper understanding of ourselves because our dreams are the “royal road to the unconscious”: Strachey, J., The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume IV (1900): The Interpretation of Dreams (First Part) (London, The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis, 1953), p.607.

Catherine Millet, Dali and Me (Zurich: Scheidegger und Spiess AG, 2009).

1 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Conscious & Unconscious

Our unconscious minds are always active, absorbing and interpreting what we experience consciously. We are aware of our conscious thoughts, as we are of sensation in our bodies, information we take in through our senses, events in our daily life and the relationships we have with other people. What we are not aware of is how the unconscious is simultaneously creating an alternative reality in our minds. Sigmund Freud realised that no experience, even the earliest, is ever lost, that traces of them are stored at unconscious levels in our minds.5 These photographs by Eugene Atget are a visual analogy of the interrelationship between our internal and external, or conscious and unconscious, worlds.

5

E.g., Strachey, J., The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume VII (1901-1905): A Case of Hysteria, Three Essays on Sexuality and Other Works (London, The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis, 1953), p. 174.

2 Š Sandy Layton, 2019

Conscious & Unconscious

1 and 2. Eugene Atget, Magasin, Avenue des Gobelins (1925)

The mannequins in these photographs exist inside the shop and behind the window, while the world outside appears on the face of the glass. The glass window reflects the outside world and gives a visual illusion that some of what is outside appears inside. In the 3 Š Sandy Layton, 2019

Conscious & Unconscious mind there is a permeable psychic barrier or skin, between our two realities – our inner (unconscious) and external (conscious) worlds.6 But, unlike the mannequins, who are static, our internal objects7 are dynamic and relate to each other, sometimes in harmony and sometimes in conflict. Just as the shop window visually connects the mannequins inside to the world outside, so our fluctuating states of mind affect our internal world and in turn are influenced by what is happening to us in the external world.

I think the capacity to ‘contain’ our feelings begins in infancy and is rooted in the relationship with our parents. As vulnerable infants we need their help in filtering our experiences to prevent us being overwhelmed by those feelings. It is our parents who protect us from being bombarded by experiences that are too painful or uncomfortable to bear, who hold and soothe us when we are uncomfortable or distressed and by so doing protect us; they create for us a safe and protective environment and over time we internalise this filtering capacity. A psychic skin starts to form that defends us from being flooded with too much distress, and this psychic skin accompanies us through life. As Caroline Garland describes , “When all goes well, containment… means that the mother can grasp the importance of, and take into herself, something of the baby’s earliest and most frightening anxieties - about being dropped, about being forgotten or abandoned, left to starve, about states of disintegration, or fears of annihilation. She can think about such things in her own way without being caught up in them, overwhelmed by them herself.”8

6

7

8

Christine Anzieu-Premmereur, ‘The Skin-Ego: Dyadic Sensuality, Trauma in Infancy, and Adult Narcissistic Issues’ Psychoanalytic Review, 102(5) (2015), pp.659-681.

“In essence, the term 'internal object' means a mental and emotional image of an external object that has been taken inside the self. The character of the internal object is coloured by aspects of the self that have been projected into it. A complex interaction continues throughout life between the world of internalised figures and objects and in the real world (which are obviously also in the mind) via repeated cycles of projection and introjection”, Melanie Klein Trust http://www.melanie-klein-trust.org.uk/ (accessed 7/4/2019).

Caroline Garland , ‘Issues in Treatment – A case of Rape”, in Understanding Trauma - A psychoanalytical Approach, ed. Caroline Garland (London, Karnac, 2nd edn, 2002) p.109.

4 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Conscious & Unconscious Wilfred Bion wrote about the importance of a receptive state of mind in the mother, one he called “maternal reverie”. When she is in this state of mind, the mother is receptive to her child’s emotional communications, enabling her to absorb them. Once she has assimilated her baby’s distress and more significantly tolerated the disturbance within herself, she is able think to about what is upsetting her infant. It is in this thoughtful state of mind that the mother is able to contain her infant’s fears and anxieties.9 In a similar vein, Maria Rhode recounts Geneviève Haag’s imaginative description of how babies experience their feelings being communicated and contained (or not contained) by their mothers, describing, “what she called a “boucle du retour”10 in which the baby experiences his emotional communications as gaining access to the mother through her eyes and as travelling through her head until they come up against the back of her skull. The latter is a vital step in the process: in the absence of this boundary the communication could be imagined as travelling on indefinitely and getting lost in space as with a mother who does not respond. With a responsive mother, however, the infant’s message encounters the “foundation” of the back of her head and passes back out to the infant through her eyes, having been transformed by its sojourn in the mother’s head.”11

9 10 11

Wilfred Bion, Elements of Psycho-analysis (London, Heinemann, 1963).

A boucle de retour can perhaps be translated as a ‘feedback loop’ [this footnote not in quotation].

Maria Rhode, ‘Whom does the skin belong to? Trauma, Communication and Sense of Self’, in Surviving Space – Papers on Infant Observation, ed. Andrew Briggs (London, Karnac, 2002) p.228.

5 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Conscious & Unconscious

Haag suggests that when as infants our emotions are not met with an understanding mind they get lost in the ether. This sense of our feelings being dissolved in the ether is reflected in this image from Francesca Woodman’s Angel Series: she appears as an ethereal spectre whose skin does not appear to be adequately holding or containing her body. In our unconscious minds, our psychic skin equates to our bodily skin, and it is this psychic skin that is ruptured whenever there is a traumatic event. As Caroline Garland explains, “Freud used the word [trauma] … metaphorically to emphasise how the mind can be pierced and wounded by events, giving graphic force to his description of the way the mind can be thought of as being enveloped by a kind of skin, or protective shield”. 12

She goes on to describe how traumatic loss plays out in the inner world: “…It leaves the individual vulnerable to intense and overwhelming anxieties from internal sources as well as from the actual external events… Thus a trauma is an event which does precisely this: overwhelms existing defences against anxiety in a form which also provides confirmation of those deepest universal anxieties.” 13

12

13

Caroline Garland , ‘Thinking about Trauma’, in Understanding Trauma - A psychoanalytical Approach, ed. Caroline Garland (London, Karnac, 2nd edn, 2002), p.9.

Ibid., p.11. (italics in original)

6 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Conscious & Unconscious

A rupturing of the psychic skin can be seen in Don McCullin’s poignant image of a marine in Vietnam. When this photograph was taken, the traumatised marine remained immobile looking straight ahead with an unblinking gaze,14 and appears to have lost contact with reality, lost in a terrifying internal world.

4. Don McCullin, Shell-shocked US Marine, The Battle of Hue (1968)

14

Shoair Mavlian, ‘Don McCullin on Assignment’ in Don McCullin (London, Tate Publishing, 2019), p.18: “[The Marine] retained the identical unbroken thousand-mile stare”.

7 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Conscious & Unconscious This confusion between what is real and what is imaginary can be seen in this surreal image by El Lissitzky; internal and external reality have become conflated and merged.

He has superimposed several different images on top of each other to create a visually complex and dream-like effect. His technique resembles what Freud called ‘condensation’15 to describe the phenomenon found in dreams where the dreamer conflates images, places, people, object and subject. This image is disconcerting because it poses the question whether we, the viewers, are seeing her version of reality (the cityscape, the men and the face) or seeing her face framed by disquieting dream thoughts. The wide-eyed frightened face in this photograph has the look of someone who has been traumatised, appearing vulnerable and threatened by the comings and goings of everyday life. As Caroline Garland writes, “Trust in the fundamental goodness of one’s objects, that it to say the world itself, is shattered.”16

5. El Lissitzky Untitled (1924)

15

16

Strachey, J., The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume IV (1900): The Interpretation of Dreams (First Part) (London, The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis, 1953), p. 278.

Caroline Garland , ‘Thinking about Trauma’, in Understanding Trauma A psychoanalytical Approach, ed. Caroline Garland (London, Karnac, 2nd edn, 2002), p.11.

8 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Conscious & Unconscious Anne Carson’s epic poem, The Glass Essay, explores the painful effect on her inner world of the break-up of her long-term relationship with her partner Law.17 The lyrical poem depicts how her mind wanders from the present to the past as she goes through the process of grieving. Carson includes her mother in the poem, and this leads me to the conclusion that the acute pain she is experiencing has awakened in her early feelings of loss in relation to her mother.18 The poem begins, I can hear little clicks inside my dream.

Night drips its silver tap down the back.

At 4.am I wake. Thinking of the man who left in September His name was Law. My face in the bathroom mirror has white streaks down it.

I rinse the face and return to bed.

Tomorrow I am going to visit my mother.

SHE She lives on a moor in the north.

She lives alone.

17 18

Anne Carson, “The Glass Essay” from Glass, Irony, and God, (New York, New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1995).

Freud accorded a central role to the mother in the child’s development, stating that the child’s relationship with its mother was “. . .unique, without parallel, established unalterably for a whole lifetime as the strongest love-object and as the prototype of all later love-relations - for both sexes”: Strachey, J., The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XXIII (1937-1939): Moses and Monotheism, An Outline of PsychoAnalysis and Other Works (London, The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis, 1964), p.188.

9 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Conscious & Unconscious Spring opens like a blade there.

I travel all day on trains and bring a lot of books – Some for my mother, some for me Including The Collected Works of Emily Brontë.

This is my favourite author.

Also my main fear, which I mean to confront.

Whenever I visit my mother I feel I am turning into Emily Bronte, My lonely life around me like a moor, My ungainly body stumping over the mud flats with a look of transformation That dies when I come in the kitchen door.

What meat is it, Emily, we need?

Time concertinas, the past momentarily obliterates the present and she struggles to separate the past from the present, as this later extract shows: Perhaps the hardest thing about losing a lover is to watch the year, repeat its days.

It is as if I could dip my hand down Into time and scoop up Blue and green lozenges of April heat a year ago, in another country.

10 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Conscious & Unconscious This absence of linear temporal time occurs in dreams and trauma; what happened in the past is re-experienced as taking place in the present. Carson’s feelings are ones that are universally experienced in infancy; fears of loss and abandonment are aroused whenever our mothers are absent or unavailable. These disturbing feelings are unconsciously and viscerally communicated to other people, in infancy as well as by those who have suffered trauma. In both instances there is a feeling of being bombarded by extreme emotions, and in the effort to manage these states of mind these powerful feelings are projected into others. These unresolved emotional states of mind seek an outlet and expression in our art.

How are our emotional states transferred onto our art? Light is thrown on this the process by considering the portraits of Isabel Rawsthorne by Francis Bacon.19 The portraits illustrate the idea that we transfer our unresolved, often turbulent, feelings onto other people.20 In the process of painting them, Bacon’s internal world prompts him to transform Rawsthorne’s face from its ‘objective’ appearance into an altered vision of her.21

19 20

21

Martine Hammer and Paul Baile, Francis Bacon: Portraits (Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh. 04 June 2005-04 September 2005).

John Rothenstein writes, “. . . to look at a painting by Bacon is to look into a mirror, and to see there our own afflictions and our fears of solitude, failure, humiliation, old age, death and of nameless threatened catastrophe.” ‘Introduction’ in John Rothenstein and Ronald Alley, Francis Bacon: Catalogue raisonné and documentation (London, Thames & Hudson, 1964).

He achieved these distortions technically through applying thick layers of paint one on top of other with the result that they stood proud of the canvas. The end result was an almost three-dimensional artwork.

11 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Conscious & Unconscious

7. Francis Bacon, Study of Isabel Rawsthorne (1970) 6. Francis Bacon, Portrait of Isabel Rawsthorne (1966)

Michael Peppiatt wrote about the portraits of Isabel Rawsthorne, “In his portraits Bacon mercilessly pulls, rips and cleaves the intricacies of his friends’ likenesses until their flayed countenances distil some essential physical and pictorial truth.”22

22

Michael Peppiatt, Francis Bacon: Anatomy of an Enigma (London, Constable, 2008), p. 257.

12 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Conscious & Unconscious In the first of the portraits shown above Bacon disfigures Rawsthorne’s face transforming her expression into a frightening grimace.

In painting this portrait, is he, through a complex process of projective identification, getting rid of his own destructive and angry feelings into his representation of her face?23 Or is he depicting Rawsthorne’s self-destructive impulses that she has projected into him and that he has unconsciously taken into himself? The resulting image of her is one that looks as though her face has imploded, collapsed and crumpled. Nevertheless there are aspects of Rawthorne’s face that remain intact and make her recognisable - her high intelligent forehead for example is clearly depicted. Bacon depicts a turbulent and visceral struggle occurring between his loving and hating feelings - perhaps a hallmark of all his relationships.

Peppiatt wrote, “If a magnificent sense of dignity emanates from these studies [of Isabel], it is because the artist’s affection is greater, but only just, than the destructive fury with which he dislocated and twisted every feature.”24 The second portrait, painted later, has a different quality and I suggest that Bacon was in a different state of mind. Despite Isabel Rawsthorne being the same person, Bacon perceives her very differently in these two portraits. There is a softness in this portrait that he conveys through using more muted colours, particularly his introduction of calming blue. Her mouth and lips are sensuously painted, and her eyes are large and appealing. It is as if Bacon was in a loving and reparative frame of mind when he painted this

23

24

Projective identification is a term introduced by Melanie Klein to describe the process whereby in a close relationship, as between mother and child, lovers, or therapist and patient, parts of the self may in unconscious fantasy be thought of as being forced into the other person.

Peppiatt, loc. cit.

13 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Conscious & Unconscious portrait and these feelings were projected into his work. 25 It is this subtle play that happens in our minds between introjection (what Bacon takes in from Rawsthorne) and projection (what he puts into the portrait) that so influences what we see and how we feel.

These same processes occur in taking photographs. When a photographer decides to shoot a scene or person, that introjection takes place in their mind and imagination. Photographers carefully choose the subject matter they want to shoot, and the aperture, film speed, exposure etc.. They project something of themselves unconsciously into the scene or person by deciding on the composition, lighting or even, as in still life, the actual objects. Particularly for those photographers using film, the developing and printing of the images in the dark room (a dark secluded and containing space) involves a subtle process of introjection and projection. The photograph can be altered, made darker or lighter, and in the process the mood is open to being dramatically changed. As I will illustrate later, these processes appear especially clearly in the work of Don McCullin and Dave Heath. °°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

25

“… at the beginning of every artistic creation is an act of aggression: the sculptor has to break and split the stone, the painter and the writer feel that they defile the white canvas or paper with the first stroke of the brush or pen; and from that moment they feel committed to the restoration represented by completing the work of art.” Hannah Segal, ‘Delusion and artistic creativity: some reflections on reading The Spire by William Golding’ in Melanie Klein Today edited by Elizabeth Bott Spillius (London, Routledge, 1988), p.254, citing Adrian Stokes, The Invitation in Art, p.196.

14 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Sandy Layton - I

The spontaneous manner in which I have taken this photo could be seen as a form of visual free association, as it was taken on my iPhone without much conscious thought. As often happens, it was only afterwards that I realised that it contains deeper emotions than I was aware of at the time. The image speaks to me of being utterly alone, adrift in a world devoid of warmth and friendship, and of there being no one to turn to for comfort. The other people are far away from me, distant anonymous figures unaware of my existence.

Are there are unconscious anxieties in this image? Could the underpass represent my journey through life? If so, it stretches out in front of me with no reassuring safe destination at the end. But these anxieties are not completely overwhelming, as the underpass is a space that holds and frames my fears just as my dreams preserve my sleep from disturbing wakefulness.

8. Sandy Layton, Underpass (2019)

15 Š Sandy Layton, 2019

Sandy Layton - I My dreams are often peppered with loss, sometimes through being abandoned or, through my own fault, losing something or someone.

My husband has suddenly gone abroad, and I am left alone. I am to follow him and am in the process of packing. I discover a suitcase dumped on the floor full of clothes… Why has he left this suitcase with clothes chaotically heaped up inside?… Am I to sort them out?... I am hurriedly packing, worried about the journey ahead... I am deliberating about what to take with me and what to leave behind and finding it difficult to decide. I feel overwhelmed. I turn and notice that our beloved dog Mungo is beside me… Stunned, I realise that no arrangements have been made for him… there is no-one to look after him while we are away. I decide impulsively to bring him with me on the aeroplane… Mungo just has to come with me! But what will happen to him when it is time to go home?… I will just have to stay with him in a foreign country…again on my own. I panic.

How am I to look after both myself and Mungo?...

In my dream feelings of abandonment and mounting anxieties proliferate. The suitcase overflows with clothes. I am not sure if the discarded clothes belong to me or my husband. They are unwanted and forgotten and those same feelings now inhabit me.26 I cannot face the enormity of the task. I am profoundly lost and overwhelmed, flooded with infantile feelings, I am unable to differentiate myself from my dog Mungo – he too has been forgotten and left behind. One moment I feel, like him, I am a dependent child again

26

This is an example of projective identification: The chaotic mess inside the suitcase is apparently my husband’s. (He has left the suitcase and contents behind and wants to disown them). In sorting out the contents of the suitcase I am taking responsibility for the suitcase and its contents, hence the confusion as to whose they are. If I sort out the suitcase, and by doing so take responsibility for the chaotic contents, then it becomes part of me and no longer my husband’s. In other words the chaos and mess has been projected into me by my husband and I have assimilated these feelings and become identified with them.

16 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Sandy Layton - I and the next moment I am his mother. It becomes imperative that I care for my dog, stay with him and under no circumstances leave him. But how can I possibly do so as I am alone and without my bearings in an alien place?

Caroline Garland has observed, “Freud lists … primary anxieties, felt to be both universal potentially traumatic for everyone: birth…, loss of the loved object, loss of the object’s love, and finally and overwhelmingly, annihilation anxiety. I think these anxieties have a single crucial feature in common: they consist of separation from, or loss of, anything that is felt to be essential to life, including life itself.

They therefore bring the individual closer to a psychic recognition of death”.27 In my dream I am deliberating about what clothes to take and what to leave behind. What is thinly disguised in my dream are the underlying themes of separation and loss. The sorting out of the heaped clothes involves deciding what belongs to me and what belongs to my husband; what is my identity as distinct from my identity as part of a couple.

I did not sleep well again last night: I have been asked to look after a little girl but every time I turn around she is gone. I keep losing her… She keeps wandering off… I realise she has gone, and I panic every time… She is so young and vulnerable… Where is she and how can I find her again?… What does she look like?... As much as I try, her face and features have been erased from my memory… Have I not bonded with her?… Is that why I cannot recall her face?… Where is she now…adrift somewhere?

27

Caroline Garland , ‘Thinking about Trauma’, in Understanding Trauma - A psychoanalytical Approach, ed. Caroline Garland (London, Karnac, 2nd edn, 2002), p.16.

17 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Sandy Layton - I I am feeling querulous. My sleep has been disturbed. I awake full of sadness about a lost and neglected child. I was asked to look after her and failed to do so. Is this child I keep losing a part of myself? One moment I am the child and the next the adult responsible for her, but I cannot bond or hold onto her. Where does the little girl exist when she is no longer remembered? °°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

18 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Francesca Woodman

Feelings of anxiety and confusion can be seen in the work of Francesca Woodman who courageously explored her own identity, gender and inner turmoil in her photographs. They are haunting and poignant. She was prone to depression and when her work was not recognised she felt utterly dejected.

9. Francesca Woodman, Space, Providence Rhode Island (1976)

10. Francesca Woodman, Self-deceit, Rome (1978)

19 Š Sandy Layton, 2019

Francesca Woodman Her photos have an ethereal quality, the subject herself merges with the surroundings as if in a dream: Woodman is both subject and object. In the first of these images she is disembodied, bending over with her arms outstretched. There is a desperate sense of her flaying around alone in an empty room, a featureless space. Is she trying to find her bearings in this desolate room, or maybe reaching out blindly for someone or something to hold onto? It is impossible to make out if it is Woodman in the image, as her head is a blur and her face indiscernible.

The second image reminds me of my dream where I could not recall the little girl in my mind. Here, Woodman is crawling on the floor, vulnerable, childlike and naked, looking into a mirror. Her face is blurred, her eyes downcast. Is she an apparition? It is as if Woodman is trying to locate who she is and to connect with the reflection of herself in the mirror.28

28

Winnicott thought that at an early stage of development the parent mirrors the feelings of his or her baby through his or her gaze. At this early stage we feel unseparated from our parent and the expression on his or her face becomes how we first see ourselves. If the expression on the parent’s face does not mirror with how we are feeling, then we are left feeling prematurely separate and alone. D.W. Winnicott, ‘Mirror-role of mother and family in child development’ (1967), in D.W. Winnicott, Playing and Reality (London, Routledge, 1971), ch.9.

20 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Francesca Woodman

There are conflicting emotions in Woodman’s photographs. She appears wraithlike in this image, emerging through a gravestone in a cemetery. Is she questioning the nature of her existence?

Such existential anxieties are experienced by every infant and projected into the world for the parent to receive and process.29 Woodman found containing her mental pain at times too much, finally leading her (unsuccessfully) to attempt suicide. This was a traumatic event in which she almost crossed over the line between life and death, leaving her vulnerable to taking such a course of action again.

11. Francesca Woodman, untitled, Boulder Colorado (1972-1975) 29

Wilfred Bion wrote about the importance of a particular receptive state of mind in the mother, one he called “maternal reverie”. When in this state of mind, the mother is receptive to her child’s raw emotional communications, enabling her to absorb her baby’s inchoate emotional communications. Once she has assimilated her baby’s distress and more significantly tolerated the disturbance within herself, she is then able think to about what is upsetting her infant. It is in this thoughtful state of mind that the mother is able to contain her infant’s fears and anxieties.

21 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Francesca Woodman A different and more playful side of Woodman is evident in this next photograph where she is kneeling on a mirror, palpably full of life looking directly at the viewer with an enquiring expression on her face.

There are many interesting aspects to this photograph that demonstrates

Woodman’s

experimental

approach

to

photography. It is a disconcerting image as she is kneeling at an oblique angle on the mirror. Unusually the shot is taken from above looking down and focusses on her upturned face. She has deliberately cropped the image severely across the top, and by so doing intentionally conceals the naked lower part of her body.

12. Francesca Woodman, untitled (self-portrait kneeling on a mirror) (1975)

22 Š Sandy Layton, 2019

Francesca Woodman I had another dream: I am trying to find where I should be… I am in a 1960’s institutional building where once I had worked a very long time ago…

I am due at an appointment marking the end of an important relationship and I am anxiously searching for the lift and stairs, but I cannot find them. Have they moved?... I keep enquiring of strangers, “Where is the room?” … Endlessly wandering down corridors with many shut doors... I become confused as there are so many corridors and doors, all looking the same… A goodlooking young man appears and accidently bumps into me and he kisses me fully on the lips. I am taken aback but instantly attracted to him and want to see him again… I become distracted and my attention leaves the young man… I need urgently to find the room where I am meant to be, and time is passing… I cannot think straight; my mind is full of conflicting feelings… I want to give the young man my phone number, but I panic as I cannot find paper or pen to write it down… But then I have paper and hurriedly write down my number… Only to become even more worried… I am late and need urgently to find the room as I am expected to be there… I am 20 minutes late… I come across a colleague … Can she help me find the room?... I ask her if she knows the room I am desperately searching for, but instead of directing me she starts chatting… Although she is very familiar with the institution, for some reason she too cannot find the room. But at least she knows the building better than I do, surely she can help me find it… or has time run out?

I become anxious whenever there is an impending separation and these fears permeate my dreams. Uncontained anxieties are awakened, triggering a concomitant terror, not only of losing the person from whom I am separating, but also of there being no trace of them left in my mind. This anxiety surfaced in the dream I had about the little girl whom I kept losing and whose face I could not remember. I felt uncertain of my ability to remember her. There was a sense in the later dream, in which I was lost in an institution where I had worked for years, that I feared losing my mind.

23 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Francesca Woodman This disconcerting image by Woodman has some of the distorting qualities of a dream. A precariously suspended door in a derelict building, paint peeling from the walls, old metal pipes wrenched off the walls and a doorway with no door leading to more doorways, leading to more empty rooms. This photograph can be seen as a desolate nightmare of an internal world that has fallen apart. The door no longer functions, leaving the rooms open without a protective barrier to differentiate an inside space from an outside space.

Caroline Garland describes trauma as, “Loss of a belief in the predictability of the world, and in the protective function of one’s good objects,30 both internal and external ….” 31 13. Francesca Woodman, Untitled, Providence, Rhode Island (1976)

30

31

“In essence, the term 'internal object' means a mental and emotional image of an external object that has been taken inside the self. The character of the internal object is coloured by aspects of the self that have been projected into it. A complex interaction continues throughout life between the world of internalised figures and objects and in the real world (which are obviously also in the mind) via repeated cycles of projection and introjection.” Melanie Klein Trust http://www.melanie-klein-trust.org.uk/ (accessed 7 April 2019).

Caroline Garland , ‘Thinking about Trauma’, in Understanding Trauma - A psychoanalytical Approach, ed. Caroline Garland (London, Karnac, 2nd edn, 2002), p.11.

24 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Francesca Woodman But Woodman’s artistic achievement is to mitigate the desolation by her careful composition, with a vista through the doorways, and by her emphatic use of light. °°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

25 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Sandy Layton - II

When I take this photograph I am about to get on a train and I happen to glance down the station staircase. I am attracted by the contrasting light and shadows and manage to capture the image just at the moment when no one is there. I notice how the sunlight casts linear shadows through the metal railings and how these cascading shadows are broken by the horizontal lines of the steps. The shadows glide and bend from surface to surface and level to level, a visual glissando.

This nondescript place, that I frequently pass through and rarely notice (a non-place32), is transformed by the sunlight into a place which suddenly catches my attention. I take the photo from an unusual angle as I turn around at the top of the staircase, so the orientation of the steps is unexpected and it is unclear whether the steps are leading up to or down from the platform.

14. Sandy Layton, Staircase, Vauxhall Station (2018)

32

Marc AugĂŠ, Non-places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity (London, Verso Books, 1995)

26 Š Sandy Layton, 2019

Sandy Layton - II Looking at this image, I realise that, through my photographic lens, I was transforming this overlooked and devalued place into a place of value. This image has a resonance with me. It is disconsolate. Did I unconsciously choose to take this photo of an overlooked scene because that is how a child part of me feels from time to time?33 Perhaps those feelings were ones my mother, who had been traumatised and depressed, could not contain.34 But the photograph is more nuanced and also contains a different set of emotions.

Taken in strong sunlight, casting dark and contrasting shadows, it is no longer just an overlooked space but one containing signs of the life instinct,35 of hope and recovery.36

33

34

35

36

“The unconscious mind is constantly scanning the external world, in a very active way, seeking out events and situations which can be used to represent internal situations. The dream is like a window into this continuous process.”: David Bell ,‘External Injury and the Internal World’ in Understanding Trauma - A psychoanalytical Approach, ed. Caroline Garland (London, Karnac, 2nd edn, 2002) p.168.

My mother was traumatised by the death of her own mother when she was too young to make sense of the magnitude of the loss. This tragic loss was compounded by being sent, at the age of four, to a boarding school away from home and her father.

Strachey, J., The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XVIII (1920-1922): Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Group Psychology and Other Works (London, The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis, 1955), passim .

My mother had a vivacious personality and was not always depressed.

27 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Sandy Layton - II

My attraction to light and shadows is also evident in this photograph of a deserted mezzanine in a decaying shopping centre. The contrasting dark and light influence my decision to take this photo, along with several others, of the inside of the Whitgift Centre. This Brutalist 1960’s shopping centre is in limbo as it is waiting to be knocked down, so there is no incentive to update the fabric of the building and it is showing its age.

Visiting the Whitgift Centre is a somewhat surreal and disorienting experience, with its eerily empty escalators whirring up and down in perpetual motion.

This image resonates with the institution in my dream – the buildings are architecturally similar and in both I have a sense of disorientation. But it is not an entirely bleak image; on the contrary, the sunlight softens and brings in a sense of warmth that enhances the textures and creates shadows.

15. Sandy Layton, Whitgift Centre (2018)

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28 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Dave Heath

Dark and light are themes that both literally and metaphorically preoccupied the photographer Dave Heath. In his photographs of ordinary people there are signs of emotional pain intermingled with more hopeful moments of relief. Heath began taking photos when he was an adolescent as a means of understanding himself as he had a disruptive and difficult early life. He was abandoned by his parents when he was four years old and grew up in a series of foster homes before being placed in an orphanage. Photography “was a medium that allowed him to look at himself attentively while also establishing a relationship with others, putting together on paper the family that he had never had in reality.”37 Heath was renowned for his skill in printing his images using a technique called burning and bleaching.

“Heath either darkens or lightens parts of the scene, acting like the director of a stage show. People stand out from the background as though they were illuminated by a bright artificial light.”38

37

38

Francesco Zanot, ‘Self Awareness’ in Dave Heath, Dialogues with Solitudes (Göttingen, Steidl, 2018) exhibition catalogue (Le Bal, Paris, 14 September – 23 December 2018).

Francesco Zanot, ‘Methodical Awareness’ in Dave Heath, Dialogues with Solitudes (Göttingen, Steidl, 2018) exhibition catalogue (Le Bal, Paris, 14 September – 23 December 2018).

29 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Dave Heath

16. Dave Heath, Howard Crawford Jr., Korea (1953-1954)

Heath fought in the Korean War and took some photographs of his fellow GI’s. The subject of this sensuous photograph, one of a series of portraits of his fellow soldiers, is in a restful pose. As Francesco Zanot wrote,

30 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Dave Heath “They too were alone, isolated, and lost in the meanderings of their thoughts, which seem to absorb every cell of their bodies, broken by waiting and their distance from home.”39 Heath felt identified with his comrades as he too wanted to leave the war zone and return to civilian life.

On his return from Korea, Heath worked for the Shiegta-Wright Studios. One of his employers commented on two books of photos that Heath had shown him and observed that it was an eye-opener, as he has always thought of Heath as a “cold fish”. Heath commented, “ What he saw was a sense of compassion, a connection with people he had never experienced from me directly in the studio because I was so remote. That has always been the character of my life I guess.” 40 Heath recognises that his ability to express his warm feelings has been damaged and through his artistic practice he attempts to repair this. He wants his images to be seen as communicating with each other in a sequence, saying, “…for me, the individual photograph is floating free in space. Something occurs through the accumulation and juxtaposition of photographs - a building and structuring which for me is the language of photography.” 41 Is “floating” how he feels, having been brought up in foster care and a children’s home with no roots or a family life to ground him?

39

40

41

Francesco Zanot, ‘Historical Awareness’ in Dave Heath, Dialogues with Solitudes (Göttingen, Steidl, 2018) exhibition catalogue (Le Bal, Paris, 14 September – 23 December 2018).

Michael Torosian, ‘Extempore - Dave Heath, Reflections and Ruminations on Art and Personal History’ in Dave Heath, Dialogues with Solitudes (Göttingen, Steidl, 2018) exhibition catalogue (Le Bal, Paris, 14 September – 23 December 2018) Michael Torosian, ‘Extempore - Dave Heath, Reflections and Ruminations on Art and Personal History’ in Dave Heath, Dialogues with Solitudes (Göttingen, Steidl, 2018) exhibition catalogue (Le Bal, Paris, 14 September – 23 December 2018)

31 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Dave Heath

17. Dave Heath, Janine Pommy Vega, Seven Arts Coffee Gallery, New York (1959)

32 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Dave Heath

19. Dave Heath, Washington Square, New York (1960)

18. Dave Heath, Elevated in Brooklyn, New York City (1963)

33 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Dave Heath

20. Dave Heath, Vengeful Sister, Chicago (1956)

21. Dave Heath, Hell's Kitchen, NYC (1958)

34 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Dave Heath The three young women in the photographs above seem isolated and alone, preoccupied with their own inner thoughts. Do these three vulnerable and sad women represent in Heath’s unconscious mind the mother whom he never knew and yearned for? In the other photos there are two distressed little boys with nobody to turn to for comfort. Does Heath unconsciously identify with the boys in these images? The one in Vengeful Sister seems to have been deliberately hurt by his sister, who is running off triumphantly, while the anxious little blonde boy in Hell’s Kitchen looks forlorn and lost.

The photographs by Heath convey his capacity to empathise with the pain and suffering of other people, as seen in his sensitivity to the expressions and gestures of the people he photographed. There is a prevailing melancholy in his images, as though the subjects are lost in sad rumination, unaware of being photographed. He seems to express the existential loneliness that can accompany the pain of losing someone loved. Heath seems to reflect on his own sadness, due to the losses he has suffered in his own life, when he sees these feelings expressed in other people. In an interview with Michael Torosian, Heath says, “I believe it all goes back to my mother, the emotional trauma. I’ve been creating this work, trying to get to the point of mourning, but it sucks me down more and more instead of releasing me.”42 Heath’s artistic practice, patiently perfecting his images and arranging them thematically, seems to have been a containing experience for him, creating an unbroken narrative in contrast with his own broken narrative.43 °°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°° 42 43

Ibid.

“Containment is Wilfred Bion’s term for the state of mind in which it is possible for the mother unconsciously to be in touch with the baby’s evacuations or communications of pain, and of his expressions of pleasure, to receive them, to be able to engage with them and savour them if calm and loving, or to modulate them if distressed and hating, and to hand them back to him in recognisable and tolerable form. Bion thought of this capacity as being essential to the baby’s ability to get to know, to centre and to understand the different parts of himself and his relationship with others”: Margot Waddell, Inside Lives - Psychoanalysis and the Growth of the personality, (London, Karnac, 2002), p.34.

35 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Eugene Atget Eugene Atget, photographing at the turn of the century, was of a different era. But, like Heath, he had a tragic life, as his father and mother had both died by the time he was six years old. He too was an introverted man and a sensitive photographer who created a remarkable archive of atmospheric and haunting photographs of pre-Hausmann Paris. His striking images demonstrate his remarkable eye for detail and composition. They are more than just an architectural record as they communicate something of his inner world.

22. Eugene Atget, Pantheon (1924)

23. Eugene Atget, Quai-d’anjou (1924)

36 Š Sandy Layton, 2019

Eugene Atget

Atget’s images, blurred and foggy, with their sense of lost time, mist and sadness, prompt in me a recollection of visiting my ageing Swiss-German grandmother when I was eleven years old.

On arrival at Southampton my grandmother greeted me warmly and we walked very slowly back to her house. She seemed very large to me, especially her hips and knees which were swollen by arthritis, so it was slow going. We had tea together in her breakfast room and she started to talk to me in English before she slipped into French and seamlessly into her mother tongue German. After tea we watched TV together and at the end of the news my grandmother politely said goodnight to the newscaster. I shared a large double bed with her, overseen on the walls of her bedroom by many faded photos of places and people I had never known. Before putting out the light she told me who the people were in the photos and their significance to her. Her mind then slipped, she spoke as though I had been with her at that time, as though I was my mother.

The experience was dream-like. My grandmother moved seamlessly between different languages - French, German and English - and between different identifications – herself, my mother and me. Were my feelings of sadness and loss in recollecting this experience – with its references to a by-gone Europe – the consequence of my taking in Atget’s sadness and loss as unconsciously expressed in his images?

The fog-veiled Pantheon devoid of people exudes a deep sense of isolation, epitomised by the two solitary lamp posts standing alone and far apart. Was the separation of the two lamp posts how he experienced his relationships with others, distant and detached?

As a child, were his attempts to communicate his needs and distress unmet or ignored? If so, he could have felt as though he was disintegrating and, like his uncontained projections, dispersing into the ether.

37 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Eugene Atget Atget's traumatic loss in childhood may also have played a part in the creation of this photograph. I have the sense that Atget just stumbled across this decaying building in his wanderings and found this arresting staircase. It is a beautifully composed and with a well of light in the centre surrounded by darkness. The once grand marble staircase is adorned by two statues of a man and a woman each in their respective alcoves and looking intently across at each other. Atget was orphaned as a young child and memories of his parents must have been distant and vague. What motivated Atget in photographing Paris may well have been a desire to hold onto the places he loved – maybe symbolising his love and longings towards his lost parents. Were the hours enclosed in the dark room, printing his photos, a containing experience for him? One cannot say, but certainly the outcome were these wistful photographs which seem full of longing for an idealised past.

24. Eugene Atget, Staircase (undated)

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38 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Don McCullin

The sad voice of my sigh forever dies across the darkened fields.

- Pasolini 44

Don McMullin’s photographs too are redolent with feelings of loss and in this respect are similar to Atget’s images. Mc Cullin grew up living in a cramped damp basement flat in Finsbury Park in an atmosphere of violence. His parents struggled to feed and clothe their children. He suffered cruelly at the hands of the people he was placed with when he was evacuated to Somerset from London during the Second World War. When he was thirteen years old his father died, and this loss scarred him deeply, and as a consequence of his father’s death he had abruptly to leave school and go out to work. He went on to be a celebrated photojournalist, creating images of war and destruction which nonetheless convey humanity and sympathy for the victims of war.

Then, much later in his career he started to create meditative images, quite different from those that he took of conflict areas of the world. Many are of landscape near his Somerset home.

44

Pier Paolo Pasolini, Son (1954) in The Selected Poetry of Pier Paolo Pasolini, transl. Stephen Sartarelli (London, The University of Chicago Press, 2014), p.73

39 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Don McCullin

In this image, McCullin captures an apocalyptic scene with turbulent clouds dramatically moving across the sky. There is enormous power and violence in this image, but the light brings a redemptive quality . Does McCullin identify with the violence in the raging skies, given his harsh experiences as a child and what he witnessed as a photojournalist? Could the dramatic febrile skies also represent positive life-affirming aggression?

25. Don McCullin, Creech Hill, close to the site of a Roman Fort or Temple (2017)

40 Š Sandy Layton, 2019

Don McCullin

This image is of two trees struck by lighting and both in a precarious state. The sky behind is dark - a glowering desolate place. Could this once delicate landscape, harshly battered by the elements, again reflect Don McCullin’s early life?

26. Don McCullin, Somerset, England (c.2000)

41 Š Sandy Layton, 2019

Don McCullin By contrast this image has a very different quality, exuding peace and tranquillity. It is an archetypal pastoral scene with a stream gently flowing between trees shrouded in mist.

Does his choice both of composition and time of day when the residual light is reflected from the stream, reveal his being in a reparative state of mind, one in which he unconsciously turns to a creative and loving mother inside himself for comfort? It is an image full of longing and yearning, perhaps a bit 27. Don McCullin, Woods near my house, Somerset (c.1991)

idealised, as happens when separated from loved ones.

42 Š Sandy Layton, 2019

Don McCullin There is a sense in these quiet landscape images that the trauma he experienced in his early life is being worked through.

Mc Cullin describes them as being an antidote to the disturbing photos he had taken of war-torn regions of the world: “I dream of this when I’m in battle. I think of misty England…”45 He is drawn to the stark contrasts of winter landscapes and deliberately prints his black and white images so as to emphasise the contrast between light and dark. He understands that there are unconscious forces within himself that have led him to make his photos dark.

“People say my landscapes look like war scenes because I do print them very dark. But you know, I suppose the darkness is in me, really.”46 McCullin has recently been taking still life photos of objects around his home. He describes how taking these photos has brought him succour after a life time of taking harrowing photographs:47 “So there is guilt in every direction: guilt because I do not practice religion, guilt because I was able to walk away while this man was dying of starvation or being murdered by another man with a gun. And that I am tired of guilt, tired of saying to myself: “I did not kill that man on the photograph, I did not starve that child”. That’s why I want to photograph landscape and flowers. I am sentencing myself to peace.”

45 46

47

Don McCullin, The Destruction Business, London, 1971, p.23, quoted in Don McCullin, Tate Britain London 5th February- 6th May 2019, p.138 Don McCullin quoted in label exhibited for Volubilis, Morocco, at Tate Britain London 5th February- 6rh May 2019. Cf. The Dark Landscapes of Don McCullin, https://aperture.org/blog/dark-landscapes-don-mccullin/ (accessed 26 May 2019).

Don McCullin, Thames & Hudson photo file, London 2007, p.5, quoted in Don McCullin Tate Britain London 5th February- 6th May 2019, p.136.

43 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Don McCullin A McCullin’s still life conveys a moment in time, captured. The water from the apples has not dried and the drips on the table look as though they have just happened. The pear is not upright but has fallen down and lies on its side. The light flooding through the space between apple and pear emphasises the negative space between them. As a photojournalist,

McCullin

photographed

people who had fallen, as victims of war or of circumstance. Perhaps the fallen-down pear and upright apple represent a duality within himself, between a capable and successful photographer on the one hand, and vulnerable human being on the other whose 28. Don McCullin, Fruit, butler sink, kitchen (pre-1989)

early life experiences had knocked him for six.

44 Š Sandy Layton, 2019

Don McCullin What is remarkable about McMullin’s black and white photographs is the sharpness of the images taken with his unflinching eye. His attention to the details in his photographs also extends to people. McCullin describes how he mentally contained the anguish projected into him from the people who were in acute distress suffering from the depredations war.48 He says, “I found I was able to share other people’s emotional experiences, live with them silently, transmit them.”49 There are signs in McCullin’s more recent work of his being able to contain his own emotions as well as those of others. Although there is darkness in his photographs, something has changed in these late images: light and hope have penetrated these dark areas of his mind. There is perspective in these photos, as I think there is in his mind; an ability to look back on the whole of his life in a state of reverie. As McCullin is in his eighties, an awareness of his mortality must be on his mind and this comes through in his photographs. He is able to acknowledge aspects of his life that have been sad but also to hold in mind contrasting feelings, such as gratitude for the full life he has led.

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

48

49

I imagine the process of taking a photo must have entailed taking in the full impact of what he saw, and being able to live with the disturbance inside himself, until in a more settled state of mind he could print his images. https://www.lomography.com/magazine/341180-crossing-the-lines-a-retrospective-of-don-mccullin (accessed 8 June 2019), quoting McCullin’s autobiography.

45 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Conclusion Traumatic experiences lodge in our unconscious minds, where they dwell for the rest of our lives, constantly pushing at the permeable barrier between our inner and outer worlds, profoundly disrupting our thoughts. There is a parallel here with photography. What is particular about photography, in contrast to other art forms, is its relationship with time. A scene, an expression, a glance of the light is captured and no sooner captured than it is past. Trauma too, once experienced, leaves an indelible trace, which we are then left to process over time.

We are unconsciously drawn to whatever we are photographing and it is only afterwards while processing the image, that we see and understand more. While working in the dark room or on the computer, we can stand back and reflect on the images. There is a time lapse between taking a photograph and processing it, a period when we can reflect on and consider the image, just as working through trauma involves standing back and reflecting on the experience. In creating a body of photographic work, we revisit specific themes and curate our images. It is a repetitive process. Something similar is happening in our minds when we are coming to terms with trauma, in that our recovery will involve repeatedly going over the traumatic experience. The repetitive nature of what we do is part of the process of working through our inner conflicts and pain.

Although anyone may have a traumatic experience, it will have a different and unique meaning for each of us. What emerges from my examination of the work of the four photographers in this dissertation is that each of them has been unconsciously driven to create work that expresses their individual responses to their traumatic experiences.

Francesca Woodman’s images dramatically show the conflict between life and death in her inner world; Dave Heath insightfully links his feelings of loss and abandonment by his mother with the profound sadness found in the expressions of the people in his images.

46 Š Sandy Layton, 2019

Conclusion Eugene Atget’s images express his nostalgic longing for what he has lost and Don McCullin attributes the darkness in his images to the dark and destructive feelings inside himself. In my work and dreams there is a sense of loss and displacement within me that are deeply connected to my mother and her inner world. Working through such devastating experiences is a prolonged and difficult process and may be impossible ever to achieve fully. But the desire to work through such disruptive feelings motivates us to keep on expressing ourselves artistically. There is also satisfaction in the attempt, because in the process of creating the art, we discover something authentic and truthful about ourselves.

The images I have discussed speak to us the viewers, conveying the photographer’s feelings, particulary of loss and desolation, both conscious and unconscious. Perhaps the photographers unconsciously hope that we will receive and contain these difficult unresolved feelings, as though the longed-for containment is located in us?

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47 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Bibliography Books Arshi, Mona. Small Hands (Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 2015) Augé, Marc. Non-places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity (London, Verso Books, 1995) Bion, Wilfred. Elements of Psycho-analysis, (London, Heinemann, 1963) Bott Spillius, Elizabeth (ed.). Melanie Klein Today (London, Routledge, 1988) Britton, Ronald. Belief and Imagination – Explorations in Psychoanalysis (London, Routledge, 1988) Briggs, Andrew (ed.).Surviving Space – Papers on Infant Observation (London, Karnac, 2002) Carson, Anne. Glass, Irony, and God, (New York, New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1995) Garland, Caroline (ed.). Understanding Trauma - A psychoanalytical Approach (London, Karnac, 2nd edn, 2002) Klein, Melanie; Heimann, Paula & Money-Kyrle, Roger (eds.). New Directions in Psychoanalysis (London, Karnac, 1977) Leader, Darian. Stealing the Mona Lisa (London Faber & Faber, 2002) McCullin, Don. The Destruction Business (London, Macmillan,1971) Millet, Catherine. Dali and Me (Zurich, Scheidegger und Spiess AG, 2009).

Nelson, Maggie. TheArgonauts (London, Melville House UK, 2015) Pasolini, Pier Paolo. The Selected Poetry of Pier Paolo Pasolini, transl. Stephen Sartarelli (London, The University of Chicago Press, 2014), p.73

48 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Bibliography Peppiatt, Michael. Francis Bacon: Anatomy of an Enigma (London, Constable, 2008), p. 257.

Rothenstein, John and Alley, Ronald. Francis Bacon: Catalogue raisonné and documentation (London, Thames & Hudson, 1964).

Strachey, J., The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume IV (1900): The Interpretation of Dreams (First Part) (London, The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis, 1953) Strachey, J., The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume VII (1901-1905): A Case of Hysteria, Three Essays on Sexuality and Other Works (London, The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis, 1953).

Strachey, J., The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XVIII (1920-1922): Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Group Psychology and Other Works (London, The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis, 1955).

Strachey, J., The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XXIII (1937-1939): Moses and Monotheism, An Outline of Psycho-Analysis and Other Works (London, The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis, 1964).

Thomas, D.M.. The White Hotel (London, Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1981) Waddell, Margot. Inside Lives - Psychoanalysis and the Growth of the personality, (London, Karnac, 2002), p.34.

Winnicott, D.W. Playing and Reality (London, Routledge, 1971) Exhibition publications Dave Heath, Dialogues with Solitudes (Göttingen, Steidl, 2018) exhibition catalogue (Le Bal, Paris, 14 September – 23 December 2018) Inner Worlds Outside (Whitechapel Gallery, 2006) exhibition catalogue (Whitechapel Gallery, London 26 April – 2 July 2006) Don McCullin (London, Tate Publishing, 2019), exhibition (London 5 February - 6 May 2019)

49 © Sandy Layton, 2019

Bibliography Label exhibited for Volubilis, Morocco, at Don McCullin exhibition [above].

Francis Bacon: Portraits, exhibition catalogue edited by Hammer, Martine and Baile, Paul. (Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh. 4 June - 4 September 2005 ) Journals Anzieu-Premmereur, Christine. ‘The Skin-Ego: Dyadic Sensuality, Trauma in Infancy, and Adult Narcissistic Issues’ Psychoanalytic Review, 102(5) (2015), pp.659-681.

Rivière, Joan. ‘The Unconscious Phantasy of an Inner World Reflected in Examples from English Literature’, 33 International Journal of Psychoanalysis 33 (1952), p.162 Websites Lomography.com: https://www.lomography.com/magazine/341180-crossing-the-lines-a-retrospective-of-don-mccullin.

Melanie Klein Trust: http://www.melanie-klein-trust.org.uk/ The Dark Landscapes of Don McCullin: https://aperture.org/blog/dark-landscapes-don-mccullin

50 © Sandy Layton, 2019