FROM FEMININE WRITING TO FEMININE PAINTING

A THESIS

SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF

GRAPHIC DESIGN

AND THE INSTITUTE OF FINE ARTS

OF BİLKENT UNIVERSITY

IN PARTIAL FULLFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS

FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF FINE ARTS

BY

ITIR TOKDEMİR

JULY, 2006
I certify that I have read this thesis and that in my opinion it is fully adequate, in
scope and in quality, as a thesis for the degree of Master of Fine Arts.

Assist. Prof. Alexander Djikia (Principle Advisor)

I certify that I have read this thesis and that in my opinion it is fully adequate, in
scope and in quality, as a thesis for the degree of Master of Fine Arts.

Zafer Aracagök (Co- Advisor)

I certify that I have read this thesis and that in my opinion it is fully adequate, in
scope and in quality, as a thesis for the degree of Master of Fine Arts.

Assist. Prof. Dr. Mahmut Mutman

I certify that I have read this thesis and that in my opinion it is fully adequate, in
scope and in quality, as a thesis for the degree of Master of Fine Arts.

Assist. Prof. Ilgım Veryeri Alaca

Approved by the Institute of Fine Arts

Prof. Dr. Bülent Özgüç,

Director of the Institute of Fine Arts

ii
 ABSTRACT

FROM FEMININE WRITING TO FEMININE PAINTING

Itır Tokdemir

M.F.A in Graphic Design

Advisor: Assist. Prof. Alexander Djikia

Co- Advisor: Zafer Aracagök

July, 2006

This thesis derives form Hélène Cixous’ conception of “l’écriture féminine”. Using

this concept, art works created by Marina Abramovic and Tracey Emin were

analyzed. In relation to the concept of “l’écriture féminine”, an attempt at “la

péinture feminine” is proposed. Under the concept of “la péinture feminine” art

works were created.

Keywords: Feminine writing, sexual difference, phallogocentric language, body.

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 ÖZET

DİŞİL YAZIDAN DİŞİL RESME

Itır Tokdemir

Grafik Tasarım Bölümü

Yüksek Lisans

Tez Yöneticisi: Yrd. Doç. Alexander Djikia

Ortak Tez Yöneticisi: Zafer Aracagök

July, 2006

Bu tez, Hélène Cixous’nun dişil yazı kavramından yola çıkarak hazırlanmıştır. Bu

kavram göz önünde bulundurularak Marina Abramovic ve Tracey Emin’in eserleri

incelenmiştir. Dişil yazı kavramına benzer olarak dişil resim kavramı önerilmiş ve bu

kavrama dair olarak sanat yapıtları üretilmiştir.

Anahtar Kelimeler: Dişil yazı, cinsel farklılık, fallogosentrik dil, beden.

iv
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to my advisor Alexander Djikia and

my co- advisor Zafer Aracagök, for their continuous help, support, tutorship and

motivation. Also I would like to thank Mahmut Mutman for supporting my research.

Secondly, I would like to thank to all of my friends, not just for their support in my

thesis and studies, but for always being together with me. I would not been able to

figure out many of the things we figured out together.

Last, but not the least I would like to thank to my parents Turgut Tokdemir and

Nesrin Tokdemir and my brother Onur Tokdemir, for their continuous support and

love. They always encouraged me throughout my art education, which made me

dedicate this thesis to them although I still owe them more.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction. .1

2. The structure of the “Symbolic”. .4

2. 1. Freud’s theory of Oedipus complex. 4

2.2. ‘Symbolic’. .7

2.3. Women’s Liberation Movement. .9

3. From “l’écriture féminine” to “la péinture féminine”. .13

3.1. Hélène Cixous and the conception of “l’écriture féminine” .13

3.2. State of Drawingness. .23

4. The Search for Freedom. .26

4.1. Marina Abramovic. .26

4.2. Tracey Emin. .30

5. An Attempt at Feminine Painting. .39

6. Conclusion. .67

Works Cited. . 70

vi
 List of Figures

Figure 1: Itır Tokdemir, Battlefield, 2005. Sketch: mixed media on 21x 29.5 cm.

Figure 2: Marina Abramovic, Freeing the Memory, duration: 1, 5 hours, 1075, Dacis

Gallery, Tübingen.

Figure 3: Marina Abramovic, Dragon Heads, 1993.

Figure 4: Marina Abramovic, Dragon Heads, 1993.

Figure 5: Marina Abramovic, Dragon Heads, 1993.

Figure 6: Tracey Emin, My Bed, 1998. Mattress, linen, pillows, rope, various

memorabilia, 79x211x234 cm.

Figure 7: Tracey Emin, Everyone I Have Ever Slept with 1963-1995, 1995.

(exterior)

Figure 8: Tracey Emin, Everyone I Have Ever Slept with 1963-1995, 1995. (interior)

Figure 9: Front Cover of the book Strangeland by Tracey Emin, published by

Hodder and Stoughton 2005.

Figure 10: Tracey Emin, Automatic Orgasm, 2001, appliqué blanket

Figure 11: Tracey Emin, Helter Fucking Skelter, 2001, appliqué blanket.

Figure 12: Tracey Emin, Volcano Closed, 2001, appliquéd blanket.

Figure 13: Itır Tokdemir, Body Print, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

Figure 14: Itır Tokdemir, Body Print, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

Figure 15: Itır Tokdemir, Crouching Woman, 2006. Latex and paint on canvas.

70x30 cm.

Figure 16: Itır Tokdemir, Stuck, 2005. Sketch: mixed media on 21x 29.5 cm.

Figure 17: Itır Tokdemir, Silence, 2005. Sketch: mixed media on 21x 29.5 cm.

vii
Figure 18: Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

Figure 19: Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

Figure 20: Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

Figure 21: Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

Figure 22: Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

Figure 23: Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

Figure 24: Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

Figure 25: Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

Figure 26: Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

Figure 27: Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

Figure 28: Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

Figure 29: Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

Figure 30: Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

Figure 31: Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

Figure 32: Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

Figure 33: Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

Figure 34: Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

Figure 35: Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

Figure 36: Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

Figure 37: Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper.

Figure 38: Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper.

Figure 39: Itır Tokdemir, Installation, 2006. Acrylics on paper, plaster.

viii
 1. INTRODUCTION

“What is my place if I am a woman?”(Cixous 75)

This thesis serves as an organized documentation of a research process about the

feminine way of expression. The main objective of this thesis is to write an “essay”

about feminine painting. This “essay” includes art works which I produced during

my studies. I am searching for an alternative to the phallogocentric language.

While writing this “essay”, I borrowed Hélène Cixous’ conception of “l’écriture

féminine”. Cixous uses words to explore alternative ways of expression to the

phallogocentric language. In addition to words, I am working with colors and paper.

I believe this process of exploration is a lifelong venture. In the book Newly Born

Women, Cixous states that “the ‘Dark Continent’ is neither dark nor unexplorable: It

is still unexplored only because we have been made to believe that it was too dark to

be explored” (68). She invites women to ‘write their bodies’. “How is it possible to

free one’s self from the learnt things which are all made by patriarchy and how can a

person express his or her self without phallogocentric language which neglects

emotions” are the concerns of this thesis.

In this study I am discussing Freud’s theory of sexuality and Lacan’s theory on the

construction of the Symbolic, to understand how femininity is constructed and how

females have a problematic relationship with the Symbolic. Moreover, I am

analyzing the Women’s Liberation Movement, in order to discuss how “equality”

1
between sexes is understood by some feminists. They try to change feminine

characteristics into masculine ones in order to achieve equality. This is why they

differentiate from post-structuralist feminists.

After these discussions, I am focusing on “l’écriture féminine”, and Hélène Cixous’

works, which includes extensive criticism of psychoanalysis. In this part, I describe

these criticisms and references both to Freud and Lacan. I also discuss Derrida and

Cixous’ references to him. Following her texts, I will discuss “l’écriture féminine”.

In the next section I concentrate on Hélène Cixous’ essay called “Without end, no,

State of drawingness, no, rather: The Executioner’s taking off”. This article is about

the importance of the processes of writing/drawing. In the same way as she deals

with language, she analyses drawing and discusses “what attracts us in a drawing”. In

the article, she emphasizes that drawing is beforehand and it is without an end.

Creation is continuous. I relate my works to this idea. While searching for my own

‘language’, I created lots of drawings, paintings, prints, three dimensional works. I

didn’t start to create these works in a ‘certain time’. There is no beginning and there

will be no end for this process.

I believe Marina Abramovic and Tracey Emin are important artists and good

examples for “la péinture féminine”. I discuss the work of artists Marina Abramovic

and Tracey Emin under the concept of feminine writing. Not only their works but

also their attitudes, life styles, and their sincerity towards their work are very

important for any discussion of the feminine way of expression. Also their approach

to liberation from patriarchy is very different. This also gives the opportunity to

2
discuss the fact that feminine way of expression is not homogeneous or classifiable

into codes. However, it is one unconscious resembling another.

These are followed by my own art works, in which, I have installed prints from my

body and sculptures together. In this chapter, I discuss the material, process and I am

proposing an attempt at feminine painting. Moreover, I discuss the changes in my

approaches after reading Hélène Cixous.

The liberation from phallogocentric language is not an easy act. When you start to

achieve your own language, the situation with the audience becomes a problem. The

audience wants to see art works which are clean, framed, and emotionally harmless,

because when they encounter chaos they are afraid. If they encounter a woman’s

body, they want to see something beautiful. Tracey Emin’s situation is an example

for this, which I discuss in the Searches for Freedom chapter.

In these studies I am trying to reflect Hélène Cixous’ conception of “l’écriture

féminine” into “la péinture féminine” in order to show that women can express

themselves better in their own language.

3
 2. The structure of the “Symbolic”

Before discussing Hélène Cixous writings and her conception of “l’écriture

féminine”, psychoanalysis and the formulation of sexuality should be discussed

because feminism, “l’écriture féminine” and Hélène Cixous’ work criticize

psychoanalysis, “which offers a universal theory of the psychic construction of

gender identity on the basis of repression” (Weedon 42). First, I will discuss how

Freud formulated sexuality. Then in the following section I will concentrate on

Lacan’s theory of the ‘Symbolic’. After briefly covering psychoanalytic approach to

masculine and feminine, I will discuss the Women’s Liberation Movement and how

it changed femininity into masculinity by defending the equality between sexes.

2. 1. Freud’s theory of Oedipus complex:

In contrast to earlier views of gender, childhood and sexuality, which saw gender

identity as inborn and sexuality as an effect of puberty, Freud stated that individuals

were sexual beings from birth. As written by Weedon in the article “Freud’s theory

of the Acquisition of Gender”, Freud asserted that infants were initially neither

feminine nor masculine but ‘polymorphously perverse’ and able to develop either

normal feminine or masculine traits or neither. This will happen in the first five years

of the infant, and the baby will repress the “other” features of its bisexuality in order

to create its sexuality. In the book Interpretations of the Flesh –Freud and

Femininity, Teresa Brennan says that, femininity is a riddle because it occurs in men

as well as women, “in the boys case however the feminine situation he desired would

4
once again have ‘castration’ as its phantasmatic consequence, a phantasy which

would lead him to repress the feminine attitude” (14).

Freud suggested human sexuality develops in three stages; the oral stage, the anal

stage and the phallic stage, plus the latency period. Juliet Mitchell summarizes

Freud’s theories about a baby’s birth and sexuality in three sensual stages; both sexes

think they have a penis in the beginning (The Omnipresent Penis), although they

have an urge to penetrate something, they do not conceive a vagina. The need of a

receptacle makes the baby create a second theory, “baby is a lump of excrement”,

both man and woman can give birth (The Cloacal Theory), the possible sight or

imagined sight of sexual intercourse and the basic aggressive urges leads to a third

theory created by the baby: sexuality is a battle, the stronger male wounding the

weaker female (The Sadistic Theory).

In the first theory, the world is the baby; in the second one, the baby makes the

world, and in the final one, the baby is excluded form the world. These theories

confirm sexual ambivalence or the persistence of bisexuality. While a little girl waits

for her clitoris to change, she perceives herself as castrated. She cannot be afraid of

that anymore. “Freud announces only that she does not tolerate the loss of a penis

without seeking recompense” (Brennan 12). This she finds in the desire for a child

from her father: “desire a baby from him as a gift” (12). The only reason she has for

giving up the Oedipus complex is because her wish is unsatisfied. This leads to

superego deficiency.

5
Brennan points out that Freud has two theories of femininity. Freud claimed that the

psychosexual development of girls was ‘precisely analogous’ to the Oedipal

impulses of boys (9). The boys first desire their mother and wish to do away with

their fathers, while girls desire their fathers and wish to dispose their mothers. After

1923 Freud changes his idea on femininity, and his second theory is called the

analogy theory. As described by Brennan, in the second theory the girls also first

desire their mother (10).

Freud’s explanation for a girl’s repression of phallic sexuality and her turning from

mother to father is “penis envy”. For Freud, “penis envy can result in a masculinity

complex in a broader sense” (Sarup, 1992 45). In this situation, she starts to behave

like a man. Secondly, penis envy can lead to a sense of inferiority, this feeling

extending from herself to all women. Another specific consequence of penis envy is

jealousy, which plays a more active part in the mental life of women than that of

men.

Freud held to his belief that the “vagina was only, in the major cases, discovered for

what it was at puberty” (Mitchell 105). Actually in Freud’s theory of female Oedipus

complex, girls have to go through lots of changes to become normal adults such as

from clitoris to vagina, from attraction to female bodies to attraction to male bodies,

and from active sexuality to passive sexuality. Freud defined masculine as active and

feminine as passive.

6
2.2. ‘Symbolic’

Lacan mapped his concept of the symbolic on Freud’s theory of the Oedipus

complex. He believed that the identity is a constructed thing; first from the imaginary

to the mirror stage, and then from the mirror stage to the symbolic stage. He argued

that language is very important in the construction of identity. When the symbolic is

entered by the language, there is a deep ‘divide’ that occurs in our unconscious self.

This divide separates language and emotions. According to Lacan, there will always

be an attempt to close or bridge the distance between the self and Symbolic. Before

discussing the language and Symbolic in a broader sense, the terms imaginary and

symbolic should be discussed.

The Word imaginary is a term used to describe the pre-Oedipal identification of the

infant with its mirror image. In this stage, the infant is neither feminine nor

masculine. In the mirror stage, the self is formulated by the “other”. Lacan’s

emphasis here is on the process of identification with an outside image. “The other is

the position of control of desire, power and meaning. Desire, the precondition of

subjectivity and motivating principle behind language, is an effect of lack. The lack

of the power to control satisfaction, meaning and the law and the split nature of

subjectivity create the need to symbolize control through language” (50).

With mirror image of the child’s ego splits into I which is watching and I which is

watched. “Because of that split, the unitary and imagined control which the child’s

identification with the mirror image brings is the imaginary” (51). The second split

7
happens within the entrance of the symbolic order, after the resolution of the Oedipus

and castration complex. This split is between ‘I’ which speaks and the ‘I’ which is

represented by the utterance.

The infant’s relationship to the ‘ideal-I’ constructed in the mirror stage is

problematic. The mirror image makes the infant passive and constrains it. “This

feeling of constraint leads to anxiety on the infant’s part, which in turn leads it to

project its aggression on to another in the real world. Both the dynamics of projection

and aggression, infant’s understanding of where it ends and where it begins, are

resolved or potentially resolved with the invention of the ‘symbolic father’ of

language” (Brennan 70).

A boy can more easily represent the difference from his mother, because of his

possession of a penis. The inference is that the lack he is representing is ‘the

separation from his mother’.

In Lacanian theory, signification is not a process of infinite free play. However, in

Derrida all the meanings are temporary and relative. For Lacan the meaning and the

symbolic order are a whole, which are fixed in relation to a primary, transcendental

signifier. This signifier is called the phallus, the signifier of the sexual difference,

which guarantees the patriarchal structure of the symbolic order.

The look into the mirror and the realization of the lack, is the main point which leads

the woman’s problematic relationship with the Symbolic system. Lacan’s description

of the Symbolic places women and men in different positions within the Symbolic

8
system in relation to the phallus. In this placement, men are near to the centre and

women are further from that center. Poststructuralist feminists such as Hélène Cixous

believe women are closer to the margins of the Symbolic order; therefore they are

closer to the Imaginary, to images and fantasies. As a result of being away from the

centre, they are further from the idea of absolute fixed and stable meaning than men

are.

Feminists like Luce Irigaray, Nancy Chodorow, and Hélène Cixous concentrated on

the importance of the pre-Oedipal phase of psychosexual development of the female.

That is the time before ‘femininity or masculinity’ when the infant is in a symbiotic

relationship with her mother. For Irigaray and Cixous, it is the time which the

femininity has not become man-made.

2.3. Women’s Liberation Movement:

In this section I want to focus on the Women’s Liberation Movement. The earlier

feminist struggle led to a new female type emerging in the United States in the

1920’s. This image of “Modern woman” has shaped the view of people about the

changing sexual roles. In America, women united to protest the injustice. The

movement actually started in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. The women’s

liberation movement developed independently from liberal feminism. According to

Hesler Eisenstein, “The sex roles analysis of the early 1970’s was taken up and given

a wide circulation in the media and the academy, and had evoked a widespread but

selective response in many quarters. As a result, women were being encouraged to

9
overcome the defects of their feminine conditioning, and seek to enter those areas of

public life previously closed to them” (xi)

They were fighting for the “equality” between the sexes. I want to focus on this

movement because it is important to understand the difference between the

approaches served by Hélène Cixous and other feminists.

Before 1960’s women had limited rights. Women seemed trapped in the house. After

that, they were given the right to change their status in life. The women’s movement

of the 1960’s made considerable changes for women related to basic rights, in the

home and in the workplace. Before, there were no women bus drivers, firefighters

and so on; moreover, women professors, doctors, scientist and lawyers were few.

Women in the United States fought vigorously for reproductive and political rights.

They also fought against being symbolized as beauty and sex objects. With the

women liberation movement and fights, women started to gain equality. When their

discourse is analyzed it is obvious that people of that time were unhappy with

looking after their children, sitting at home and similar domestic activities. Betty

Friedan is one of the people who argue that “equality” does not mean “women

should act like men” in her latter studies.

Betty Friedan emerged as the spokesperson for liberal feminism in the late 1960’s

and early 1970’s. “According to revisionist liberal feminists like Friedan, sexual

equality of conditions, or egalitarianism, wrongly assumes that women and men are

the same and not “different”. This particularly means that women, thinking that they

are the same as men, no longer feel free to have children” (Zillah Eisenstein 190).

10
For Eisenstein the point that Friedan argues is that, when feminist defends the

equality, they become antimotherhood and antifamily people. “By differentiating

women from men in the name of biological and hence “natural” difference, the

hierarchal relations of society are defended against the greatest “excess” of

liberalism, namely, feminism” (190). It is important to differentiate between

“equality” and “sameness.” For sure women and men should be treated equally in

justice, business and social conditions. However, it is important not to forget

femininity and masculinity are different. Women should not quit their motherhood in

order to be the “same” as men. There is another important thing to discuss about the

binary opposition of femininity- masculinity. If the repressed one is changed from

feminine to masculine, then the situation will be reversed. As cited by Hester

Eisenstein, Gerda Lerner claims, if women’s experience was taken as the norm, then

men and maleness become the Other.

Like Kate Miller, Betty Fredan, blames Freud for helping to organize a counter-

revolution against the women emancipation. The theory of “penis envy” made

women escape from their socially correct feminine behavior.

The theory of penis envy shifts the blame of her suffering to the
female daring to aspire to a biologically impossible state. Any
hankering for a less humiliating and circumscribed existence is
immediately ascribed to unnatural and unrealistic deviation from
her genetic identity and therefore her fate. A woman who resists
“femininity,” e.g. feminine temperament, status, and role, is
thought to court neurosis, for femininity is her fate as ‘anatomy is
destiny” (Eisenstein 7).

11
I believe women can find their place having equal rights, by expressing themselves

by an alternative language. This can happen in the language. Hélène Cixous stresses

that the liberation will start from the language, right here and right now.

12
 3. From “l’écriture féminine” to “la péinture féminine”

3. 1. Hélène Cixous and the conception of “l’écriture féminine”

Western thought and basically structuralism are phallus and logo centered

(phallogocentric). Post-structuralist feminist writers are against the idea of anatomic

destiny which is proposed by psychoanalysis. Hélène Cixous stresses that women

should be free from the closure of the psychoanalysis.

The structure of language is centered on the phallus, which produced the word

“phallocentric.” “The meaning of the term phallus must be distinguished from the

word penis”. The penis is an organ of the body; phallus is the signifier, function or

metaphor. “Lacan says explicitly that the phallus is not a fantasy, not an object, but

least of all an organ, penis” (Sarup, 1992, 93). The phallus is the signifier of a lack.

According to the psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud, although males possess a

penis, no one can possess the symbolic phallus. The theory formulated by Lacan

serves Symbolic as phallus, this shows that the language is a patriarchal system.

Derrida’s idea is that the structure of language relies on spoken words. He stresses

that the spoken words are privileged over written words, and produced the word

“logocentric” to describe Western culture in general. What holds that speech-thought

(the logos) is a privileged, ideal, and self-present entity, through which all discourse

13
and meaning are derived. The system privileges not only speech over writing but

presence over absence, identity over difference, fullness over emptiness, meaning

over meaninglessness, mastery over submission, life over death. This logocentrism is

the primary target of deconstruction. Hélène Cixous and Luce Irigaray combined the

two terms and created the word phallogocentric.

Hélène Cixous is mostly associated with “l’écriture féminine”- feminine writing. The

theory of the “l’écriture féminine” is constructed as “other” writing. Cixous’ vision

of “l’écriture féminine” has insinuations for the process and purpose of writing. For

Cixous, it is the effort to write the other but in ways which repudiate to neglect the

difference of the “other” in order to glorify itself. Cixous believes writing is

revolutionary. Feminine writing is

a place (…) which is not economically or politically indebted

to all the vileness and compromise. That is not obligated to
reproduce the system. That is writing. If there is a somewhere else
can escape infernal repetition, it lies in that direction, where it
writes itself, where it dreams, where it invents new worlds (Sellers
xxix.).

It is self exploration and writing of the self. Writing is like a shadow of life, Cixous

writes in order to overcome her “loss”. She says;

I believe that one can only begin to advance along the path of
discovery, the discovery of writing or anything else, from
mourning and in the reparation of mourning. In the beginning the
gesture of writing is linked to the experience of disappearance, to
the feeling of having lost the key of the world, of having thrown
outside. Of having suddenly acquired the precious sense of rare, of
the mortal. Of having urgent to regain entrance, the breath, to keep
the trace (Sellers introduction).

14
Cixous became familiar with many of France’s leading intellectuals, such as Michel

Foucault, Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Derrida. Her relationship with Derrida in

particular remained strong. Moreover, her writings have references to Sigmund

Freud and Martin Heidegger. “Cixous reads and writes at the interstices of Lacan’s

theory of language - that of the chain of signifiers and not of phallus- and Derrida’s

différance” (Conley 9). Her focus on reading and writing are from a ‘feminine

border’. Her work is influenced by the anti-essentialism of Derrida’s deconstruction

and she brings together his notion of logocentrism and phallocentrism. “She argues

that masculine sexuality and masculine language are phallocentric and logocentric,

seeking to fix meaning through a set of binary oppositions, for example

father/mother, head/hearth, intelligible/sensitive, logos/pathos, which rely for their

meaning on a primary binary opposition of male/female (or penis/lack of penis)

which guarantees and reproduces the patriarchal order” (Weedon 63-4).

While Cixous explains what is important in her writings or anybody’s writing, she

uses the quotation from Derrida’s Dissemination;

A text is not a text unless it hides from the first comer, from
the first glance, the law of its composition and the rules of its game.
A text remains, moreover, forever imperceptible. Its laws and rules
are not, however, harbored in the inaccessibility of a secret; it is
simply that they can never be booked in the present, into anything
that could rigorously be called perception.
And hence, perpetually and essentially, they run the risk of
being definitely lost. Who will ever know such disappearance?
The dissimulation of the woven texture can in any case take
centuries to undo its web: a web that envelopes a web, undoing the
web for centuries; reconstituting it too as an organism, indefinitely
regenerating its own tissue behind the cutting trace, the decision of
each reading (Conley 8).

15
Derrida stated that “a text remains imperceptible”, a characteristic which cannot be

arrested. It remains elusive. “There is no hidden secret to be revealed, no truth to be

extorted, but there is always that part of the text, the imperceptible, the writerly, the

unconscious dimension that escapes the writer, the reader” (Conley 7).

“Différance, not a concept, not even a word, but the

movement of something deferred or something that differs, escaping
an assignation, a definition. Différance does not have a punctual
simplicity, that of the point, the period, of the sujet un, identical to
itself, an author-head-god. What passes from one language to
another, from one sex to another, in translation, as always a question
of différance. Sexual différance replaces difference; movement
supersedes stasis and Hegelian differences recuperable into dialects.”
(Conley 8).

Différance is a pun in French. The pun happens from two meanings of the French

word différer. One of the meanings is “to defer” (To put off; to postpone to a future

time; to delay the execution of; to delay; to withhold) and the other is “to differ”.

While it is neither a concept nor a word, it is neither active nor passive. It is identity

and not identity. It points out a middle voice. With the difference meaning is

possible. It indicates the process of reading and writing.

Western thought is dominated by metaphors. The word’s meanings are grounded in

the metaphors. Derrida defends against this limiting function each of these metaphors

controlling the meaning of a text. Therefore logocentrism is coercive, powerful,

irrepressible desire for such a (transcendental) signified. It imposes external limits

upon the internal free play of textual structures. For Derrida the text should be free

from the external influences. Actually, “what passes from one language to another,

from one sex to another, in translation, is always a question of the différance”

(Conley 8).

16
Derrida stresses that there is a differential between masculine and feminine where

one signifier always defers the other. Derrida breaks down the paternal authority,

which Cixous calls the ‘masculine border’. Derrida is important for Cixous because

he does not claim that he discusses feminism from a feminine border. He admits that

there is a textual unconscious, “who at the same time works on the unconscious other

and also at the same time his own unconscious at work” (148).

Before starting to discuss and analyze the essays of Hélène Cixous, it is important to

mention that feminine writing itself is a dangerous expression, which can lead to

confusion. The word feminine is a word which is circulated everywhere and distorted

by everyday usage. ‘Feminine’ and ‘masculine’ are, as Cixous mentions “words

which refer, of course, to a classical vision of sexual oppositions between men and

women - are our burden, that is what burdens us” (Conley 129). She continues “As I

often said, my work in fact aims at getting rid of words like ‘feminine’ and

‘masculine’, ‘femininity’ and ‘masculinity’, and even ‘man’ and ‘woman’, which

designates that which cannot be classified inside of a signifier except by force and

violence and which goes beyond in any case” (Conley 129). When one says

‘feminine writing’ one could “almost think in terms of graphology”. Instead of using

masculine writing or feminine writing, she uses a writing said to be feminine or

masculine. She says “I speak of a decipherable libidinal femininity which can be read

in a writing produced by a male or female. The qualifier masculine or feminine

which I used for better or for worse comes from the Freudian territory” (129).

17
In “The Laugh of the Medusa”1 Hélène Cixous, invites and encourages woman to

write because she believes that woman have been driven away from writing as from

their bodies. Woman should put herself in the text and to the world and history. The

women are afraid of writing. The reason for Cixous is that writing is at once too

high, too great for woman, it’s reserved for the great- that is for “great men”: and it’s

“silly”. She continues to say “let no one hold you back, let nothing stop you”. The

readers, the critics are all scared of the true texts of women. This means that the more

you write the truth about yourself, the greater barriers that will face. Although

Cixous states that feminine writing is an area for both sexes, she believes that women

are closer to a feminine economy than men.

Women are subjects of feminine libido. It has two reasons for Cixous. One is in a

move to essentialism, she links feminine libido with female sexual organs. The other

is, “Cixous gestures towards a historical perspective in which both feminine and

masculine libidos are constructed in particular but not necessarily universal ways

under patriarchy” (Weedon 65). Writing becomes a way to give voice to the

repressed female sexuality.

By writing her self, woman will return to the body which

has been more than confiscated from her, which has turned in to
the uncanny stranger on display- the ailing or dead figure, which so
often turns out to be the nasty companion, the cause and location
of inhibitions. Censor the body and you censor the breath and
speech at the same time.
Write yourself. Your body must be heard. Only then will be
the immense resources of the unconscious spring forth. Our
naphtha will spread, throughout the world, without dollars- black
or gold- nonassessed values that will change the rules of the old
game (the Laugh of Medusa, 577).

1
The essay The Laugh of the Medusa has common parts with the essay Sorties from the book Newly
Born Woman.

18
Cixous’ essays are difficult because she is referring to Freud and Lacan’s

formulations about female sexuality and about the structure of language. Following

Lacan’s theory, in order to enter into the Symbolic, the infant must separate from the

mother’s body. For that reason, Cixous says, the female body in general becomes

unrepresentable in language. The female body cannot be spoken or written in the

phallogocentric Symbolic order.

In addition to this, she writes on two levels at once. At the same time she uses the

words literally and metaphorically. While doing that, she refers both structures and to

individuals. As written by Mary Klages in the essay Hélène Cixous: “The Laugh of

the Medusa”, “ When she says that “woman must write herself,” “woman must write

woman,” she means both that women must write themselves, tell their own stories

(much as the American feminists say women must tell their own stories) and that

“woman” as signifier must have a (new) way to be connected to the signifier “I,” to

write the signifier of selfhood/subjecthood offered within the Symbolic order”.

Cixous’ version of Lacanian psychoanalysis is “relatively optimistic about the

possibility of transforming patriarchal symbolic order through giving women a new

sense of themselves, repressed until now, and asserting different feminine meanings

and values at present repressed by patriarchy” (Weedon 66). For Cixous “l’écriture

féminine” also involves the description of the repressed in the history and culture.

Cixous suggests that history effects present time, but past should not be repeated.

The repetitions of the past will strengthen the effects of it. Therefore, a new way of

writing should be made by women rather than repeating the old way. Women should

write through their bodies. Otherwise, when they repeat the language centered on the

phallus, they write like a man. However, it is so hard to create a new way of

19
expression. We were born into a world which is constructed and ruled by patriarchy,

so we learn to express ourselves in their way. “How can we prevent our writing from

reproducing the ways we have been taught to see and experience ourselves and the

world? Even if we can block our receptive faculties and memories and live our body

experiences without disturbance from numerous taboos, descriptions and images that

surround us, how might it be possible to write these experiences without recourse to

the language system in which such definitions are embedded?” (Sellers 9) Seller

suggests that one way to get free from the constructed and learned things lies in the

link between the unconscious and the body.

“Now, I - woman am going to blow up the Law: a possible and inescapable

explosion from now on; let it happen, right now, in language” (Cixous 95). The Law

which is used in this quotation refers to the Law of Father, which has an important

role in the formulation of the subject. When the Law is broken, then all the meaning

systems and “symbolic” will collapse.

The second problem about feminine writing is the impossibility of defining and

theorizing it. For Cixous, this impossibility will remain, “which does not mean that it

does not exist” (580). It is not possible to talk about female sexuality as uniform,

homogeneous, classifiable into codes- anymore than you can talk about one

unconscious resembling another (574).

Body is important for Cixous’ conception of “l’écriture féminine” in three ways.

“First, Cixous stresses that woman’s bodies – including our perception of ourselves

and our sex-specific experiences as women have been appropriated and imaged by

20
men” (Sellers 6). Secondly, for Cixous language is a function of the body. Language

is a translation which translates the process of what we are thinking, speaking

through the body. Thirdly, the role of the mother’s body is very important in the

feminine writing. Sellers says, Cixous “suggests that the rhythms and articulations of

the mother’s body have a continuing effect, and she believes the inscription of these

rhythms is important in preventing the codes of the patriarchal symbolic from

becoming rigidified and all-powerful” (7).

In the book The Newly Born Woman, which is coauthored by Catherine Clement,

there is an essay called “Sorties”. In this essay, Cixous questions oppositions, she

says all the pairs of oppositions are couples, theory of culture, theory of society,

symbolic systems in general-art, religion, family, language. It is all developed while

bringing the similar schemes to light. The duality works with hierarchy. The couple

represses through hierarchy (64). Cixous for exemplifying this situation uses Hegel’s

Master/Slave relation.

In this couple, they need each other to define themselves. However, this leads to a

threat and therefore they try to repress each “other”. There is a power inequality in

the relationship. As Susan Sellers mentioned, Cixous suggests that woman has

figured within this system only as the construct of man, with the result that ‘she’ has

become non- existent, ‘unthinkable’ (37). Feminine writing is important because it

has the capacity to circumvent the binary structures embedded in our system of

thinking.

21
As binary oppositions suggests, women are always associated with passivity in

philosophy. Cixous uses the “sleeping beauty” tale to explain the passivity. Beauty

sleeps like a dead women. She is beautiful but passive and desirable. The prince is so

sure that she has been waiting for him forever. “She has the perfection of something

finished. Or not begun” (66). He kisses her, with his kiss she awakes. “He leans over

her… Cut. The tale is finished. Curtain. Once awake (him or her), it would be an

entirely different story. Then there would be two people, perhaps. You never know

with women. And the voluptuous simplicity of the preliminaries would no longer

take place” (Cixous 66). The rest of the story is well known.

In the “Sorties”, Cixous argues about Freud’s and his followers ideas about

femininity. She questions why men are afraid of being a woman. Why do they refuse

femininity? She says that these questions stump Freud. “The bare rock of castration.

For Freud, the repressed is not the other sex defeated by the dominant sex, as his

friend Fliess (to whom Freud owes the theory of bisexuality) believed; what is

repressed is leaning toward one’s own sex” (85). Cixous posits a form of bisexuality

as an alternative to the destructive masculine hegemony.

Bisexuality is conceptualized as “neuter”; Cixous says it is a fantasy of a complete

being. It replaces the fear of castration. It veils sexual difference. However it is not

wholeness in two halves but it is wholeness within one. Women are associated with

bisexuality; men having been trained to aim for glorious phallic monosexuality.

Cixous stresses that writing belongs to women. Meaning that women admit that there

is an ‘other’. While becoming woman, she has not erased the bisexuality latent in the

22
girl as in the boy. “Femininity and bisexuality go together, in a combination that

varies according to the individual, spreading the intensity of its force differently and

(depending on the moment of the history) privileging one component or another. It is

so much harder for man to let the other come through him. Writing is the

passageway, the entrance, the exit, the dwelling place of the other in me – the other

that I am and am not, that I don’t know how to be, but that I feel passing, that makes

me live – that tears me apart, disturbs me, changes me, who? –a feminine one, a

masculine one, some? – a several, some unknown, which is indeed what gives me the

desire to know and from which all life soars”. (Sorties 86). In other words, woman

has an opportunity to express herself better. She is able to accept the other without

repressing it.

3.2. State of Drawingness

-When do we draw?
- When we were little. Before the violent divorce between Good
and Evil. All was mingled then, and no mistakes. Only desire, trial,
and error. Trial, that is to say, error. Error: progression.
As soon as we draw (as soon as, following the pen, we advance in
to the unknown, hearts beating, mad with desire) we are little, we
do not know, we start out avidly, we are going to lose ourselves
(21).

In this section I want to concentrate on the article “Without end, no, State of

drawingness, no, rather: The Executioner’s taking off” by Hélène Cixous. In the

article, she focuses on the creating process. In fact, this process is the main concern

of my works. It can be said that this article points out the connections between

writing and drawing, which is necessary for discussing feminine painting.

23
Cixous writes about drawing because it is “before”; it is “essay”. It is not organized

beforehand. The creation is happening with desire. It is like forgetting everything

you know. For Cixous, it cries out. It has no last word, “truth always has the word

before” (Cixous, 1998, 29). It has no last word because it is continuous. The true

drawing is without end, without limitations, it is like the world in its continuous

movement with a natural drunkenness.

Actually, writing and drawing are similar for Cixous. She calls them “twin

adventures, which depart to seek in the dark, which do not find, and as a result of not

finding and not understanding, (draw) help the secret beneath their steps to shoot

forth” (21). In order to discover we need to try harder. We shouldn’t be afraid of

errors, “I seek the truth I encounter error” (22). We shouldn’t be afraid to be judged

by ‘great’ critics.

For Cixous, the reason of the effectiveness of the drawings is not the contours, “but

what escapes the contour” (24). The emotion is important in the drawings, which can

be felt between the lines. For instance, in Battlefield, there are multiple lines which

were made to show the emotion.

24
Figure1: Itır Tokdemir, Battlefield, 2005. Sketch: mixed media on 21x 29.5 cm.

25
 4. The Search for Freedom

In this chapter I am going to discuss the works of Marina Abramovic and Tracey

Emin. I will discuss them under the concepts of liberation, femininity and Hélène

Cixous’ ideas on “l’écriture féminine”. The two artists work in different mediums,

and their styles are dissimilar. However, they both try to liberate themselves from

patriarchy, in order to express themselves better.

4.1. Marina Abramovic:

The reason I chose Marina Abramovic is because of her approach to body and her

proposal of freedom. Marina Abramovic is a performance artist who pushes the

boundaries of physical and mental. She questions her control of her own body, the

relationship between the audience and the body of the performer and the codes of the

system. “Her profound and ambitious project is to discover a method, through art, to

make people more free” (eyestorm 2003). This can be interpreted within the context

of feminine writing.

Abramovic perceives body as a site which moves. In her point of view, body is a

boat. In her works the boat serves as a symbol of distancing. “Distancing

(disappearing) from the shore (of the land) toward the invisible line of the sea

26
(water), and the sky (air), and thus can be recognize as a mytheme2 of death” (Pejic

26).

The body metaphors such as boat, house, and site are used in the art works of Marina

Abramovic. Also Hélène Cixous writings refer to body as a house;

The house I live in is my own,

I never copied anyone…
She has not been able to live in her “own” house, her very body (Sorties 68).

In all these body metaphors there is a connotation of a shelter; being is sheltered in

the body. For Abramovic body is a boat which needs to be emptied from everything

that had been culturally encoded. This body of Abramovic needs to be liberated from

language, from the “Symbolic”. This aim is obvious in her performance, called

Freeing the Memory 1975, where she speaks the words that come to her mind

without stopping. Actually, excessive usage of a thing leads to meaninglessness. By

speaking words to one another continuously, Abramovic made them meaningless. As

stated in the article “Being in the Body on the Spiritual in Marina Abramovic’s Art”,

speech is always the ‘quoting’ of those words which already ‘exists’, then

Abramovic tries to liberate herself from speech” (27).

In the works of Abramovic there is an effort for escaping language; whereas, Cixous

proposes that language can be the starting point for alternative economies, for

example feminine way of writing.

2
In the study of mythology, a mytheme is an irreducible nugget of myth.

27
Figure 2: Marina Abramovic, Freeing the Memory, duration: 1, 5 hours, 1075, Dacis

Gallery, Tübingen.

“Serpent mythology is arguably the most widespread mythology known to mankind,

and the serpent has been attributed with a variety of sexual characteristics and

‘desirable’ traits: from the phallic male force, to potent femininity” (eyestorm). In the

performance Dragon Heads, there is a strong reference to the Medusa myth.

The Medusa has been used in an essay by Hélène Cixous. She questions Freud’s

psychoanalytic theories, and Cixous states that Freud incorrectly turns “Medusa into

a monster by associating the snakes of her head with women’s denial of castration”

(Wiens). Within “l’écriture feminine”, Cixous sees Medusa as a beautiful woman

laughing.

28
Figure 3: Marina Abramovic, Dragon Heads, 1993.

Figure 4: Marina Abramovic, Dragon Heads, 1993.

29
 Figure 5: Marina Abramovic, Dragon Heads, 1993.

4.2. Tracey Emin

The reason I chose to discuss Tracey Emin and her works is because of her personal,

sincere and honest approach to art. While discussing her style and some of her

works, I want to concentrate on how she combines words with her sincere works.

Her style of discovering a new language “of her own” is recalling Hélène Cixous’

conception of “l’écriture féminine”, which I will discuss later in this section.

Tracey Emin is an autobiographical artist. She is very sensational. With her works

and behavior, she becomes a celebrity. In her works, she depicts her private life and

her emotions very sincerely and openly. Her confessional art exposes all kind of

things about herself that most people would be ashamed to reveal. These include

abortion, rape, self-neglect and confusion.

In the first issue of Tate Magazine, there was an article about Tracey Emin called

“Something’s Wrong: Melanie McGrath on Tracey Emin”. There it is written that

30
Tracey Emin is narcissistic, but not in a sense that she loves herself. “I mean that

Tracey Emin loves an image which may or may not be herself, but of which she can

never be sure. I mean that Emin only half recognizes her own projection. And this, of

course, is why her work is so lonely, so furious and so demanding of attention”

(McGarth). When you look at Tracey Emin’s work you see the artist struggling to

reach herself, compelled by her own self-consciousness to fail and condemned by the

self-same thing to begin again.

There are many reasons for her to become a sensational and famous artist. For

instance, she appeared on a Channel 4 television program in 1997. It was an

important show about that year’s Turner Prize. Emin appeared drunk and she claims

that the reason for her situation was of the painkillers she was taking for her broken

finger. She had sworn at, and insulted the panel members. Then she said she wanted

to go home to her mum and left the program. In 1999, two years later, she was

nominated for the Turner Prize, which she didn’t win but she exhibited My Bed in

Tate Gallery. The work was also sensational because it includes private aspects of

the artist’s life. Emin has been criticized for “being nothing more than a biographical

documentarist”, concerned only with the ordinary details of her narcissistic

personality.

31
Figure 6: Tracey Emin, My Bed, 1998. Mattress, linen, pillows, rope, various

memorabilia, 79x211x234 cm.

Figure 7: Tracey Emin, Everyone I Have Ever Slept with 1963-1995, 1995.
(exterior)

32
Figure 8: Tracey Emin, Everyone I Have Ever Slept with 1963-1995, 1995. (interior)

Her work Everyone I Have Ever Slept with 1963-1995 was exhibited in the show

Minky Manky at the South London Gallery. It was a blue tent, which inside all the

names of people who she slept with are sewed. These names include sexual partners,

relatives she slept with as a child, her twin brother, and her aborted foetuses.

33
 Figure 9: Front Cover of the book Strangeland by Tracey Emin, published by

Hodder and Stoughton 2005.

Besides her works which also contains words, her writings are all done sincerely,

honestly. She published her book Strangeland (2005), it is divided into three sections

called, “Motherland”, “Fatherland” and “Traceyland”. The book is written in first

person and takes a look to her life from childhood to adulthood. Jeanette Winterson

stated that “her latest writings are painfully honest, and certainly some of it should

have been edited out by someone who loves her, nevertheless, Strangeland is more

than Tracey’s diary, just as her bed and her tent and her blankets are more than

private displays that happen to have attracted a lot of attention”. She transferred her

private life in to public. She shared her secrets, notes, sketches with public. Actually

when she wrote her very personal experience she was not just giving voice to her

self, but lots of others.

34
In the same article “The Times: Books; Tracey Emin”, Winterson argues about the

judgments made about women artists. She wrote, “Antony Gormley is taken

seriously when he talks about the body, in particular, his own body, as the centre of

everything. When Tracey does it, it is often re-interpreted as publicity-seeking

display, or self-obsession”. As Hélène Cixous mentioned in her essays, people are

afraid of the true texts of women. They don’t want to encounter with emotion and

chaos. For instance they don’t want to see confusion in an art work. However if we

are dealing with sincerity, art work can have the traces of the artists psychological

situations.

The way Tracey Emin uses words with in her works are together creates her own

language. This language is not a phallogocentric one. It is feminine. She, in her

works tries to express and find herself. She questions life and the patriarchal system.

She puts the truth of herself and her life.

35
Figure 10: Tracey Emin, Automatic Orgasm, 2001, appliqué blanket.

36
Figure 11: Tracey Emin, Helter Fucking Skelter, 2001, appliqué blanket.

37
Figure 12: Tracey Emin, Volcano Closed, 2001, appliquéd blanket.

38
 5. An Attempt of Feminine Painting

I painted my body. From now on every move I make, every pace I take will leave

traces on the paper. Where does this urge come from? From my body, from inside, I

want to ‘say’ but not just with words. There is a vigorous effort. The body prints

were started in small scales, first just some parts, then it grew, expanded, and filled

up the space with the movement, the silence, the color, the rhythm. I call them

freeing. “Freeing” from the ‘voice’ which is telling me how to draw, how to

compose, how to create the beautiful. In a broader point of view it is liberation from

the system, which tells me how I should live.

Figure 13: Itır Tokdemir, Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

39
 Figure 14: Itır Tokdemir, Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

My body feels the paint, covered with wet paint, it recalls ritualization. There is a

process of preparation, then time stops. Shapes emanate.

40
First there was hesitation. I was not so sure what I was dealing with. It didn’t matter

which medium I was working with, I was interested in the process in which the body

and the medium interact. For instance while working with latex I was interested in

the movement of the body while pouring the mixture of paint and latex. “Body

speaks the truth”. It is so challenging. It would be so hard to discuss what I am trying

to do from the beginning, without Hélène Cixous’ essays. It is hard to explain these

kinds of art works with phallogocentric language.

Figure 15: Itır Tokdemir, Crouching Woman, 2006. Latex and paint on canvas.

70x30 cm.

41
I am combining words with drawings and body prints in order to create my works. I

went through a process from “only doing sketches not for public display” to sharing

them all. I was shy about sharing some of works because I was afraid of hard

reactions. This process taught me to be brave about showing my works. Now I am

able to combine the visible and the invisible –the works which I did secretly and the

ones I was brave enough to show. This work has been produced during this research

process. I have learnt that I shouldn’t be afraid of chaos.

Figure 16: Itır Tokdemir, Stuck, 2005. Sketch: mixed media on 21x 29.5 cm.

The reason I chose to work with my body has several reasons. First of all, it is

important to mention that, while making the body prints you can be in between the

42
state of consciousness and unconsciousness. I am not trying to say that these works

should be done without awareness, but I try to direct attention to the act of doing art

“as an urge coming from inside”. Sometimes the “voice” should be hushed.

In one of her interviews Cixous said “We are made of repression, and the

unconscious is nothing but that. However, one may attempt to write as closely as

possible to the unconscious, to the area of repression… I want to write as freely as

possible” (Conley 151).

Figure 17: Itır Tokdemir, Silence, 2005. Sketch: mixed media on 21x 29.5 cm.

The combination of traces, words and small drawings have an effect of sketchiness.

They are not “perfectly” finished, because it is a process, it is continuous. I am

continuing to leave traces, to write down words and to draw.

43
I usually work on “kraft” paper. I am emphasizing the sketchiness of the works

created. I have always used “Kraft” paper for sketches in my life. I remember myself

sitting on a big size “kraft” paper and drawing when I was small. As Hélène Cixous

writes in her article “Without end, no, State of drawingness, no, rather: The

Executioner’s taking off”, when a person seeks truth, she/he encounters error. With

“kraft” paper seeking is possible, because it gives chance to multiple lines and prints.

In this process, I did the body paints and prints with black, white, grey, gold and

silver colors. The body was used as a brush. The movement of the body is important

for writing, painting and drawing. I did lots of body prints using different mediums.

In the installation I used a big size studio. I covered up the floor with kraft paper.

From the middle of the room to the walls I left my foot prints. It is like an exposition.

It is like exploration.

On the walls I installed my body prints. There are three different approaches to living

brushes. First group of works are more like paintings; backgrounds are painted by

hands, and the second group is prints, the body printed itself and third group is prints

with frames. Third group is ‘clean’, their emotions are different. Every work has

different emotion.

I include two sculptures made from body molds in the installation. The molds were

taken from my body. The crouching figure is on the centre of the room. It is ‘still’ in

a room full of traces of movement. It is sitting in silence.

44
Figure 18: Itır Tokdemir, Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

45
Figure 19: Itır Tokdemir, Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

46
Figure 20: Itır Tokdemir, Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

47
Figure 21: Itır Tokdemir, Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

48
Figure 22: Itır Tokdemir, Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

49
Figure 23: Itır Tokdemir, Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

50
Figure 24: Itır Tokdemir, Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

51
Figure 25: Itır Tokdemir, Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

52
Figure 26: Itır Tokdemir, Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

53
Figure 27: Itır Tokdemir, Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

54
Figure 28: Itır Tokdemir, Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

55
Figure 29: Itır Tokdemir, Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

56
Figure 30: Itır Tokdemir, Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

57
Figure 31: Itır Tokdemir, Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

58
Figure 32: Itır Tokdemir, Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

59
Figure 33: Itır Tokdemir, Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

60
Figure 34: Itır Tokdemir, Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

61
Figure 35: Itır Tokdemir, Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

62
Figure 36: Itır Tokdemir, Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

63
Figure 37: Itır Tokdemir, Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

64
Figure 38: Itır Tokdemir, Body Paint, 2006. Acrylics on paper. 70x100cm.

65
Figure 39: Itır Tokdemir, Installation, 2006. Acrylics on paper, plaster.

66
 6. CONCLUSION

Throughout the history, women artist tried to express themselves and represent

women experiences in their art works. They question sexual roles, they criticize male

dominancy and they try to find a place in art. Lots of women philosophers, and

writers analyzed the feminine condition.

In this study, I tried to put forward how the formulation of sexuality and femininity

are problematic under the concept of psychoanalysis. Freud said about the

development of sexuality that, infants were initially neither feminine nor masculine

traits however they are ‘polymorphously perverse’ and able to develop either normal

feminine or masculine or neither. It will happen with the repression of the ‘other’.

Because of the castration complex boys will be able repress their feminine traits.

Freud’s definition for a girl’s repression of phallic sexuality and her turning from

mother to father is “penis envy”. Following Freud’s Oedipus complex, Lacan

formulated his theory of Symbolic. The meaning and the symbolic order are fixed in

relation to a primary, transcendental signifier which is called the phallus. Freud’s

ideas on “penis envy” and Lacan’s construction of ‘Symbolic’ are problematic for

femininity.

Following that I tried to differentiate post-structuralist feminists like Hélène Cixous

from others by exemplifying the Women’s liberation movement and their aim to

masculinize women in order to reach “equality”. Next I discussed Hélène Cixous and

her conception of “l’écriture féminine”. While discussing her conception, I point out

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her criticisms of Freud and Lacan. Cixous argues that masculine language seeks to

fix meanings through a set of binary oppositions. She uses Derrida’s différance while

discussing the logocentrism and phallocentrism.

Women should write themselves in order to express themselves in the

phallogocentric world. It is important not to lose the feminine condition while

expressing. Hélène Cixous’ thoughts are very important for that point. She stresses

women should write women. In other words women should express themselves with

feminine characteristics.

It is impossible to neglect the patriarchal system and its impositions. Most of the

women artists try to find a way to deal with this problem. As exemplified by the

works of Marina Abramovic and Tracey Emin, liberation from the phallogocentric

language can be possible with creating an alternative language. Abramovic frees

herself from language by excessive usage of words, while Emin uses her own

language to communicate. They both are sensational. They both have lots of admirer

and there are lots of people who are against their art.

As a person who deals with art, I am also trying to find a way to express my self and

my ideas to communicate. Without an alternative language I feel myself stuck and

speechless. When I first read Hélène Cixous I felt “yes, I am not alone”, “there are

lots of people who are living the same things as I am”, “they are also confused and

try to find a way to express them”. Most importantly Cixous’ call which encourages

women to write themselves helped me to keep my faith in what I am doing and

helped me to continue my research.

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In my studies, I am getting help from the conception of écriture féminine. It is a

philosophy that contributes to the growth of expressing women’s experiences and

feelings. Reading Hélène Cixous, helped me to give a shape to my approach and

instructed me to find myself. These studies made me brave and comfortable in

making and sharing my art. Now, I know I am on the right track.

In my works, my body is my brush. I use my movements to create paintings,

drawings, sculptures and so on. Body either in movement or motionless is a trace. It

creates a language. What it leaves behind is emotion. Every “body print” is different

from the other. Every single one has a different movement or different color

combination. Using the conception of “l’écriture féminine” I proposed an attempt at

“la péinture féminine”. Cixous’ article “Without end, no, State of drawingness, no,

rather: The Executioner’s taking off”, helped me to move from the conception of

“l’écriture féminine” to “la péinture féminine”. The next step of my project will be to

mix prints with drawings of the body and words. I believe that will also suggest lots

of new possibilities.

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 7. WORKS CITED

Brennan, Teresa. The Interpretation of the Flesh: Freud and Femininity. London:
Routledge, 1992.

Cixous, Hélène. Dream I Tell You. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006.

---. Stigmata: Escaping Texts. London: Routledge, 1998.

Cixous, Hélène and Catherine Clement. The Newly Born Woman. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1986.

Cixous, Hélène and Jacques Derrida. Veils. Stanford: Stanford University Press,
2001.

Conley, Verena Andermatt. Hélène Cixous: Writing the Feminine. Nebraska:

University of Nebraska Press, 1991.

Eisenstein, Hesler. Contemporary Feminist Thought. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co. 1983.

Eisenstein, Zillah R. Feminism and Sexual Equality. New York: Monthly Review
Press, 1984.

Eyestorm, “Marina Abramovic”, 2003.

<http://www.eyestorm.com/feature/ED2n_article.asp?article_id=38&artist_id=108>

Klages, Mary. Hélène Cixous: “The Laugh of the Medusa”,

<http://www.colorado.edu/English/courses/ENGL2012Klages/cixous.html>

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Mitchell, Juliet. Psychoanalysis and Feminism. New York: Pantheon Books, 1974.

Pejic, Bojana. “Beeing in The Body: On The Spiritual in Marina Abramovic’s Art”
Cantz ed. Marina Abramovic. Stuttgart: Edition Cantz, 1993.

Samuels, Robert. Between Philosophy and Psychoanalysis: Lacan’s Reconstruction

of Freud. London: Routledge, 1993.

Sarup, Madan. Post- yapısalcılık ve Postmodernizm. Ankara: Bilim ve Sanat, 2004.

---. Jacques Lacan. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992.

Shiach, Morag. Hélène Cixous: A Politics of Writing. London: Routledge, 1991.

Sellers, Susan. Hélène Cixous: Authorship, Autobiography and Love. London:

Blackwell Publishers, 1996.

---. ed. The Hélène Cixous Reader. London: Routledge, 1994.

Weedon, Chris. Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory. Oxford: Blackwell

Publishers, 1997.

Wiens, Elmer G. “Strategies of Difference and Opposition”,

<http://www.egwald.com/ubcstudent/prose/strategiesdifference.php>

Winterson, Jeanette. “The Times: Books; Tracey Emin”.

<http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=357>

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