Sujet

Sujet
Oil on Panel
49 x 24"

Fabula and Sujet (also sjuzhet, syuzhet, sjužet, or suzet (сюжет) ) are terms originating in Russian Formalism and employed in narratology that describe narrative construction. Sujet is an employment of narrative and fabula is the order of retelling events. They were first used in this sense by Vladimir Propp and Shklovsky.^[1]

^{This painting has been sitting in my studio waiting patiently to be finished for a few months now. I really dislike leaving pieces half completed, but moving house just meant that certain things couldn't get done normally.}

^{My ideas about the body telling a story really came through with this painting, I think. I'm becoming more and more interested in the emotional value of 'unfinished' brushstrokes, when juxtaposed with more 'refined' areas of interest in a painting. I think it adds a raw quality to the piece, an energy which I've been looking for to balance the new things I'm learning about the more technical aspects of painting.}

^{I've got a lot more work to post, and it's interesting for me to compare this piece - which was really at the beginning of the change I'm seeing in my work - with the paintings I've done over the past few days. I'm still working my way through Richard Schmid's 'Alla Prima', and right now I'm very preoccupied with edges. And colour.}

^{Sometimes I feel like my head will explode with all this new awareness of the visual world; other times, a lesson I learnt just appears in my mind at the right time, and I get to try it out for myself. It's very satisfying but I'm very much out of my comfort zone right now, and it reminds me of learning to drive.}