Our experience of the world is subjective–we are constantly interpreting the world around us according to what we have already perceived, experienced, and learned. How we interpret the world–and how we draw on prior experience to do so–is studied in psychology and cognitive neuroscience, theorized about in philosophy, and explored in the arts. To study subjective interpretation, we combine multiple disciplines – using behavioral paradigms from cognitive neuroscience and psychology in order to test an overarching framework of subjective interpretation that arose in art history–the Beholder’s Share. In this dissertation, I present three studies that investigate the behavioral and neural phenomena of the Beholder’s Share. I begin, in Chapter 1, by giving an overview of the Beholder’s Share and its intersections with theories of the mind and brain. I then discuss our approach to studying the Beholder's Share; namely, by measuring cognitive and neural responses to abstract and representational art by the same artist, as a key prediction following from the Beholder’s Share is that it will be different for abstract and representational art. Following this, I then present a review of the literature that has begun to characterize the cognitive and neural responses to abstract and representational art, and the open questions we address in our studies. Chapter 2 presents a behavioral study that leverages the well-established theory of mental representations–Construal Level Theory (CLT). Drawing from CLT, we develop a behavioral paradigm that reliably characterizes differences in mental representations between abstract art and representational art, showing that abstract art evokes more abstract, context-independent representations than representational art. This study serves to establish reliable and measurable differences in the subjective experience of abstract and representational art, and yields a task that can be used to elicit these differences. Chapter 3 describes a study that combines behavior and fMRI, and takes advantage of advancements in multivariate analysis methods of brain activity and models of natural language processing to capture the Beholder’s Share in neural activity and written descriptions. This study demonstrates that both neural and semantic representations evoked by abstract paintings are more subject-unique than those evoked by representational paintings. Moreover, subject-unique patterns of brain activity are present in the Default Mode Network, a set of brain regions thought to be involved in internally oriented cognition. This study demonstrates that participants contribute personal associations to abstract paintings more than to representational paintings, and links this process to brain regions involved in higher-level cognitive processes. Chapter 4 examines the role of prior experience in subjective interpretation. I present a study in which we induced different prior experiences with an emotional autobiographical memory induction and measured the effects of that manipulation in written descriptions of abstract paintings. This study shows that abstract paintings are more vulnerable to manipulations in prior experiences, as well as individual differences in naturally occurring experiences, measured by self-report. Together, these results suggest that abstract paintings are interpreted more subjectively than representational paintings. This process of subjective interpretation recruits regions of the brain involved in internally oriented cognition (the DMN) and involves drawing on prior experiences. These results, and the methods we used to obtain them, have implications for understanding subjective experience and cognition more fully. Chapter 5 situates these results in the broader discussion of how we study subjectivity, and carves out a role for the Beholder’s Share in future research characterizing individual differences.

While new approaches to displaying art free both the art and the viewer from overly didactic forms of curation, there have been very few attempts to examine how viewers negotiate meaning from art when no goal or directive is provided. While some see difference as the critical factor, others use similarity as a way to introduce new narratives. This dissertation research takes a close look at the kinds of things people observe in visual works of art to expose the specific ways that the offerings in the work are made knowable by its viewer and how different modes of presentation might affect the process. A paired design was developed to find out how juxtaposing works on dimensions of similarity and difference might affect what people see in individual paintings and whether the presence or absence of depictive content would be a factor. In three online experiments, participants were tasked with generating as many single words or short phrase responses as they could over a two-minute time period from a selection of modern and contemporary paintings – 32 abstract and 32 representational. In the first study, paintings were presented sequentially. In the next study, the same pictures were purposefully matched for color, composition, style, and thematic content. In the third study, the same pictures were re-paired to maximize difference. Pairing effected an overall decline in number of total comments for representational paintings compared to isolated single-view sequences. In contrast, significant increases were found for abstract art when the adjacent painting was also abstract. Significant consistency in response patterns for both art types across all three studies provide quantitative and content-based evidence for a normative level of engagement, with specific processing effects relative to art type.

This diploma is devided into two major parts. Theoretical and practical. In the theoretical part I consider the meaning of touch which is ambiguouse. Fist of all it should express, by the form of art, our desire and necessity to establish into relationship with another human-being, get in touch and get to know each other. By the time of working at this cycle my form is beginning to change. Touch doesn´t only express relationship but they´re also recording my touching, getting to know myself. The practical part of my thesis focus on production figures. It consists of a cycle of paintings, fiberboard of various sizes made by acrylic technique. These paintings capture directly human bodies in positions of touching, proximity, delay. They capture the joy in positions of direct touch againts deprivation when a person is deprived of contact with another person. The starting point of this thesis is personality and emocionality.

Tels que l’historiographie de l’art les a enregistrées, l’œuvre de Paul Rebeyrolle et sa carrière (1945-2005) posent question au-delà de cette définition stricte, base factuelle d’une hypothétique notice d’encyclopédie : qu’est-ce qu’un peintre français des IVe et Ve républiques ? Paul Rebeyrolle est connu pour être méconnu, reconnu, toujours, comme un excellent peintre, loué par certains comme l’un des plus importants de la période, en France, mais demeure réduit à la portion congrue de l’histoire de l’art contemporain français, lorsque celle-ci juge bon de le mentionner. Il a pourtant bénéficié d’un succès précoce, dans les années 1950, dans le sillage d’un Bernard Lorjou ou, surtout, d’un Bernard Buffet, avant de subir un désaveu équivalent. Un marchand aussi important qu’Aimé Maeght et des préfaciers aussi renommés que J.-P. Sartre ou M. Foucault n’y auront rien changé. En cela, il est exemplaire de tout un pan de l’art français qui, avec la Ve république et sa politique culturelle, semble avoir été déclassé pour un certain nombre de raisons qu’il reste encore à évaluer : différends esthétiques, mésententes plastiques, dénis hérités de la querelle des abstraits et des figuratifs, non-dits liés à la question de l’engagement politique de l’artiste, imprécisions ou partis-pris critiques et légèreté des commentaires journalistiques friands de poncifs... Autant de malentendus qui ont contribué à brouiller la juste appréciation de son œuvre et l’ont tenu éloigné d’une véritable reconnaissance institutionnelle. / The way they’ve been retained by Art historiography, Paul Rebeyrolle’s work and his carreer (1945-2005) appear to be problematic beyond this strict definition, factual basis for an hypothetical encyclopedia entry : what defines a French painter under the 4th and 5th republics ? Paul Rebeyrolle is well-knowed for being under-estimated, always acknowledged as a great painter, sometimes even praised as one of the most important painters of that period, in France, but still limited to the smallest share of the French history of contemporary art, when this one finds it appropriate to mention it.Yet he benefited of an early success, during the 50’s, in the wake of painters such as Bernard Lorjou and especially Bernard Buffet, before enduring a similar disavowal. An art dealer as important as Aimé Maeght and preface writers as renowned as Jean-Paul Sartre or Michel Foucault didn’t make any difference. Thus, he appears to be paradigmatic of an entire part of French art which, under the 5th republic and its cultural policy, seems to have been downgraded for a certain number of reasons that still needs to be evaluated : aesthetic disagreements, plastic discords, denial inherited from the abstract and figurative painters’ quarrel, unsaid things about the artist’s political commitment, art critics’ vagueness and preconceived opinions, journalistic frivolity fond of clichés... As many misunderstandings that led to interfere with a fair appraisal regarding his work and prevented him from ever getting a real institutional recognition.

Initially, my developing body of work aimed to redesign the traditions of representational painting, specifically the female nude, to depict the contemporary notions of lesbianism and femininity in an honest and empowering manner as a form of identity and not as vehicle for voyeurism. As an artist who paints the female nude and identifies as a woman and a lesbian, I examine the preexisting notions of the male gaze and the effect of socialization as it pertains to my work. The act of looking from the point of view of a woman, which is not synonymous with a "female gaze", or from the point of view of a lesbian, is not a birthright, but a conscious effort to constantly question the way we see and produce pictures and realizing that the male gaze permeates most images of female nudes. By the nature of my sexuality and my exposure to existing male-produced images, do I see the female nude through the male gaze or is there a gaze that is essentially female? Does it matter either way if the image is aesthetically compelling? My paintings neither attempt to conform to the male gaze or debunk it, nor do I attempt to prove the existence of a female gaze. Like Edgar Degas, I wish to look through a keyhole-a form of voyeurism-to see people outside of their public facade.

The autobiographical nature of my work deals with the space between the innocence of childhood and the wisdom of adulthood. I explore the complexities of personal experience, old and new landscapes and the scar tissue of memory. The work deals with beginnings and departures, relationships and conflict of power and vulnerability in the quest to make sense of life. My work connects with moments of childhood that I try to retain as a touchstone for authentic experience. The images are derived from personal and familial experiences, moving through to the universal to tell the human tale, using the human body as a metaphor. The body becomes the subject matter for expressing ideas about our universal and personal concerns. I explore the gulf between the real and the unreal through examining themes such as identity, vulnerability, anxiety, fear, alienation, abandonment, loss, corruption of innocence, love and death within a contemporary urban framework. These emotions are played out against the backdrop of daily domesticity and reflect the physical reality of the world around us, often exposing the contrast between the orderly veneer of our daily lives and our emotional reality. My work methodology uses narrative found in books, films, fairy tales or fables to explore the conflicting emotions which structure human identity and interaction. I use the stories as a way of approaching ideas or emotions and exploiting the story as a focus of cultural knowledge. In the search for emotional truth I draw parallels between my art practice and the search for authenticity within the theatre. My work is an attempt to explain my own creative process in relation to the artists who have influenced me, my childhood, its rich tradition of storytelling and my passion for theatre and literature as well as a search for meaning in my own relationships and life's journey. This is conveyed through a series of paintings and works on paper.

The autobiographical nature of my work deals with the space between the innocence of childhood and the wisdom of adulthood. I explore the complexities of personal experience, old and new landscapes and the scar tissue of memory. The work deals with beginnings and departures, relationships and conflict of power and vulnerability in the quest to make sense of life. My work connects with moments of childhood that I try to retain as a touchstone for authentic experience. The images are derived from personal and familial experiences, moving through to the universal to tell the human tale, using the human body as a metaphor. The body becomes the subject matter for expressing ideas about our universal and personal concerns. I explore the gulf between the real and the unreal through examining themes such as identity, vulnerability, anxiety, fear, alienation, abandonment, loss, corruption of innocence, love and death within a contemporary urban framework. These emotions are played out against the backdrop of daily domesticity and reflect the physical reality of the world around us, often exposing the contrast between the orderly veneer of our daily lives and our emotional reality. My work methodology uses narrative found in books, films, fairy tales or fables to explore the conflicting emotions which structure human identity and interaction. I use the stories as a way of approaching ideas or emotions and exploiting the story as a focus of cultural knowledge. In the search for emotional truth I draw parallels between my art practice and the search for authenticity within the theatre. My work is an attempt to explain my own creative process in relation to the artists who have influenced me, my childhood, its rich tradition of storytelling and my passion for theatre and literature as well as a search for meaning in my own relationships and life's journey. This is conveyed through a series of paintings and works on paper.

La réminiscence et l’apparition des images par des facteurs affectifs déclencheurs font partie inhérente du processus de création picturale qui est issue d’une nécessité intérieure. Les affects inscrits dans les souvenirs alimentent la force créatrice en s’actualisant par l’acte de réminiscence. C’est dans cette dynamique de l’intériorité que le langage pictural se forme en engageant la mémoire où le surgissement des images est soumis à l’affect. La métaphore de la nuit nous a permis d’interroger davantage l’incertitude de la mémoire et de l’état après le rêve, où les images d’intimité sont enfouies. La revalorisation de la subjectivité, de l’intime et du désir témoigne de l’intention d’une archéologie émotionnelle qui ramène la peinture à ses origines premières. Travaillant à partir des images d’images, les artistes contemporains explorent l’articulation du souvenir au présent. Nourrie de cet usage qui repose sur une interaction de l’ordre du « toucher » avec l’image, la « durée » picturale correspond à la réminiscence.La peinture, comme une forme intériorisée du réel, se déploie dans une mise en scène des multiples temporalités par une stratification de la matière picturale. Dans cet espace, le souvenir s’actualise dans la sensation de la couleur. En tant que qualité affective, la couleur permet d’exprimer le climat émotionnel attaché à un souvenir et de rendre visible l’affect. La surface du tableau est un tissu chaotique, mais également génératrice d’ « accidents proustiens », de retrouvailles et d’énigmes. Ici, la mémoire est la source d’où émane l’imagination. / The reminiscence and the appearance of images triggered by the emotional factors are inherited in the process of pictorial creation that comes from the inner necessity. By becoming actualized by the act of reminiscence, the affects inscribed in the memories nourish the creative force. In these dynamics of interiority, pictorial language is formed by the engagement of the memory. The emergence of images is subject to affect in the memory. The metaphor of the night has allowed us to question further the uncertainty of the memory and the after-dream state, where the images of intimacy are buried.The increase of subjectivity, the intimacy and desire reflect the intention of an emotional archaeology that brings the painting back to its origins. The use of images of the images in the contemporary artist’s works explores the connection of remembrance with the present. The pictorial time length, nurtured by this use based on an interaction between the emotional “touch” and the image, corresponds to the reminiscence.Painting, as an internalized form of the real, spreads out in a staging of multiple temporalities by a stratification of pictorial matter. In this space, memory refreshes itself in the sensation of the colour. As an affective quality, the colour enables the expression of the emotional climate attached to a remembrance and makes the affect visible. The surface of the painting is a chaotic material, but also source of "Proustian accidents," reunions and enigmas. Here, memory is the origin from which emanates the imagination.

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I denna essä formulerar jag mig kring mitt måleri och mitt behov av att definiera mötet mellan konstverk och betraktare. Jag försöker att närma mig mötet som tema genom att referera till andra konstnärer och författares begrepp, namn som till exempel Paul Celan, Vera Frisén, Wassily Kandinsky, John Stenborg och Ulf Linde. I essän finns också minnesbilder av möten med måleriet som kommit att påverka mig starkt under min uppväxt, med hjälp av dessa minnesbilder får jag nycklar till att se hur det påverkat det som kom att bli mitt konstnärskap idag. Min förhoppning är att kunna precisera vad detta möte är, kan vara, och slutligen, förstå varför jag klamrar mig fast vid det.