M I C H A E L K I R K H A M

Boy and Girl under Tree 2005, 200 x 170 cm

Aschenbach & Hofland Galleries

Michael Kirkham

Ernst van Alphen

Mets & Schilt uitgevers

This volume was published on the occasion of the Michael Kirkham exhibition

Haags Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, The Netherlands, July 12 – October 28, 2007.

M I C H A E L K I R K H A M

In a world in which film and television is ubiquitous, illusionist spaces

present themselves predominantly as animated and thus as narrative.

Everything moves, or can start moving. Everything lives, or belongs to

the domain of the living. Everything relates to everything, or can be

related to something else. It is this implied interaction between human

beings and objects that imposes a narrative coherence to almost any

form of illusionist space.

It is especially in contrast with this “hysterically” animated world that

the paintings of Michael Kirkham induce an uncanny experience.

Again and again we question to what extent his illusionist spaces

actually are animated. Are the figures we see represented in his

paintings supposed to be human beings? Or are they puppets or

automatons, comparable to the puppet Olympia in the famous story

“The Sandman” by E.T.A. Hoffmann? Are the eyes of the figures

supposed to see something, or are their gazes empty and their eyes of

glass? It is precisely this ambiguity in Kirkham’s work that makes us

think of the work of the German artist Oskar Schlemmer or the English

artist L.S. Lowry.

But our hesitance or uncertainty is not restricted to the ambiguity

between alive and lifeless. In most of the early paintings, the space in

which the figures are situated is highly undefined. Although we see

pieces of furniture such as a bed or a couch, it usually remains rather

ANIMATING LIGHT:

ON THE WORK OF

MICHAEL KIRKHAM

Ernst van Alphen

Leiden University

4

unclear whether we are confronted with an interior or an outside space.

In the rare cases that we see more than one figure represented in a

painting, it is also not really clear whether something is or has been

going on between them. In e.g. Couple on Bed (Sleeping) 2001 as

well as in Couple on Bed 2001 we see a naked man next to a naked

woman. Inclined as we are to read situations like these as narrative, we

tend to think of a couple having just made love. But looking more

carefully, we realize that nothing in the painting indicates that the man

and the woman have been involved with each other. We simply see

them lying or sitting next to each other. Is this a genre painting,

comparable to a love scene by Fragonard or Boucher? Or should we

see these paintings as still lifes: two bodies on a bed?

The ambiguities in Kirkham’s work imply more than a lack of clarity or

an arbitrary possibility of choice. They cause a feeling of discomfort, of

anxiety, or even of threat. It is because of this “gloomy” effect that the

expression “uncanny” is so adequate to describe the impression these

works leave on the viewer. Sigmund Freud, in his profound analysis of

the uncanny experience, mentions some situations that almost literally fit

the paintings of Kirkham.1 He mentions wax sculptures, puppets and

automatons as case in which it is not clear for viewers whether they are

seeing something alive or dead. But he also mentions epileptic fits or

certain fits of madness as events that create the impression that a

mechanical or automatic process is occurring behind the usual mental

activity. In literature such as gothic stories it is usually haunted houses

where the uncanny is experienced. Inside the intimate and safe space

of the home, events happen which suggest the presence of an alien

force or person.

However, Freud comes to the conclusion that what imposes itself as

strange or alien is in fact not strange at all. It is not unknown, but rather

something that is familiar and known that has been repressed.

According to Freud, the reason to repress something familiar lies in a

threat that it once presented for the demarcation and definition of the

5

Couple on Bed (Sleeping) 2001

30 x 50 cm

Couple on Bed 2001

35 x 60 cm

34 Hand in Black Glove (Smoking) 2006, 60 X 50 cm

35The Origin of the World (Negative) 2005, 100 x 150 cm

44 Untitled 2006, 25 x 30 cm

45Absturz 2006, 170 x 190 cm

50 Absturz 2006, 50 x 60 cm

51Old Man by the Lake 2007, 200 x 220 cm

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