Kiki Lamers
Presumed innocent
The depiction of children is one
of the most dangerous, mine-strewn paths, in purely iconographic terms, an
artist can undertake. At one end of the road the impassive monolith of
sentimental art beckons as a form of desperate refuge in the midst of pathos.
Each individual in its unending succession of smiling, pink-faced cherubs
(think late Renoir) is the separate embodiment of a cynically codified
innocence that is all the more repellent for its adherence to a delusional myth
rooted in society�s fear of its own violent impulses. Rather than simply
assuaging our fears, sentimental art invites us to compare our rattled adult
psyches with the phenomenon of exaggerated subjectivity, as represented by the
child�s expression while it plays with a puppy, and to find our grown-up selves
forever lacking. Innocence, having never really existed in human behaviour as
we�d like to believe, functions in sentimental art as a way of disabling the
viewer�s critical apparatus, then drowning it in a sea of moralizing
banalities.
Sentimentality
would seem to be diametrically opposed to the other, admittedly more dangerous
extreme of child representation, pornography, but in actuality the two
opposites are closely linked through their adherence to unreality. One need
only consider Lewis Carroll�s unforgettable camera portraits of his beloved
These
two extremes of representation are necessary road markers in any discussion of
the work of Kiki Lamers, a Dutch painter, who for several years has created
unusually lush, carefully rendered and lovingly detailed portraits of young
children. A realist by inclination, Lamers typically paints her subjects in the
nude, giving them naturalistic poses that are comparatively revealed or
obscured by the extent to which they are cropped within the picture frame.
Meeting our gaze halfway without hesitancy or shame, they are not disguised as
adults, nor are they transformed into exaggerated stereotypes of moral purity
for the sake of adulthood�s fierce inclination toward self-incrimination. On
the contrary, Lamers� subjects are purely realistic in their technique, and
quite naturalistic in the way their bodies and facial expressions have been
arranged. Most importantly, their gaze is fully human, disarmingly so, since
the absence of physical development is often experienced in direct contrast to
the heightened state of awareness indicated by their unflappable gaze.
If any element of Kiki Lamers�
work invites us to deconstruct her paintings in our search for a prurient
subtext, it is colour. Although virtually all of her colours are directly taken
from nature, one gets the sense from looking at Lamers� paintings that the
palette has been disassociated from its sources, so that the watery pinks,
blues and greens have taken leave of their precise relationship to human flesh.
[�]
As
a rule, Lamers does not depict her subjects as either eternally innocent or as
preternaturally mature. In fact, what is most immediately puzzling about her
approach is the degree to which she insists on seeing her subjects as people
first, and children second. This does not mean that she is in any way
indifferent to the particular needs and weaknesses that children have, or to
their distinctive attributes as pictorial subjects. On the contrary, Lamers
seems to understand the psychology of children to a greater degree than almost
any other artist working today, and to apply that knowledge to the way she
positions and frames them. But she also appears extremely aware of the extent
to which many adult observers, in the name of kindness or sympathy, often
undermine the special humanity that children possess by talking down to them.
This is not quite the same as over-sentimentalizing
them, but it does severely limit the capacity for intergenerational
communication. By contrast, Lamers studies her subjects very deeply, and asks
herself what it is about children that most observers cannot see. Despite the
fact that the children in her paintings are far from developed or mature, what
is unique about them is that they are fully functioning and conscious human
beings, with a complex range of needs and aspirations that are every bit as
subtle and demanding as those of adults. [�]
Obviously, the moral questions
arising from her representation of naked children are at the centre of Kiki
Lamers� motivation in creating such images. As much as she might like us to
respond to her adult and child subjects in the same way, she is also aware that
there are very few moral concerns that rate as highly in society as the
protection and spiritual care of a child. Transforming the naked image of a
child into an icon may seem a reckless way reinforce this hypothesis, but in
reality it is one of the very few ways in which the topic can be brought into
active discussion. Thanks in large part to the vast and rapid proliferation of
all kinds of pornography, the societal battleground over issues of representation
has expanded to include all forms of nudity, so that today it is virtually
impossible to view a child�s exposed flesh without also being keenly aware of
the layers of contention that are caught up in such a display. Lamers seems to
possess a conviction that further repression of such images can only have a
negative result, both for adults and children, since it increases our sense of
doubt as to whether we are capable of sufficient self-control. In an ideal
society, we should be able to enjoy the image of a child for all its
iconographic complexity and emotional depth. By creating pictures to be enjoyed
in that ideal society, Lamers seems to be expressing a confidence in humanity�s
essential goodness that only time, and tolerance, can deliver.
Dan Cameron.