The painter, Doug Auld, 52, says that if people have a chance to gaze without voyeuristic guilt at the disfigured, they may be more likely to accept them as fellow human beings, rather than as grotesques to be gawked at or turned away from.Photography already serves this function of allowing us to stare, and grotesque subjects are frequently chosen. But a painting is different, isn't it? To paint something in a detailed style like Auld's requires a great deal of time and intensely focused attention. A painting proves the artist's long stare. A photograph -- however long the photographer planned and gazed -- is only evidence of one moment.
So go ahead and stare. This is what people with burns look like. There are thousands and thousands of them, and while many shut themselves away, plenty venture out to conduct their lives.
June 18, 2006
"We were like, 'What if this thing blows up and everybody wants to get burned?'"
Says one of two sisters who were severely disfigured in a house fire and have now had huge portraits painted.
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I like the distancing effect the author points to here:
As Alvaro Llanos, who nearly died in a dormitory fire at Seton Hall University in 2000, said: "I'd rather people be staring at a painting than at me."
On the other hand, I wonder about this:
The painter, Doug Auld, 52, says that if people have a chance to gaze without voyeuristic guilt at the disfigured, they may be more likely to accept them as fellow human beings, rather than as grotesques to be gawked at or turned away from.
I'm not sure that "voyeuristic guilt" is really erased. The painter may intend for it to be so, but I think the "voyeuristic guilt" inheres in the knowledge that these are representations of actual burn victims. Looking at the man with the burnt away hand, I do feel a twinge of what you might call "voyeuristic guilt." I'm free to look at it all I want, because the man is not there, and I don't have to fear that I'm transgressing social codes by staring. So the outright shame of I-cannot-help-but-stare is gone. But I still feel the twinge of guilt.
It's a little like pornography -- if one imagines pornographic art of a woman who is no longer entirely anonymous. There's voyeurism and guilt.
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