Exhumation of pearls: A schematized drawing and its unconscious depth

Abstract

Abstract The article presents and discusses a portrait by the author of his mother. This appears as a young woman of the 1950s who is wearing a string of pearls. The portrait, however, is first a motif that has enabled the development of a Harris Matrix: a method of recording the results of archaeological excavations stratigraphically. This idea has resulted in the drawing’s elusive depth being transposed as cross-sectional bars of actual physical depth. Relative depths of sections of the drawing have been determined by the lengths of time involved in their manufacture. The article contains an explanation of how a matrix can be constructed from these circumstances and provides a likely visual example. The second section of the article explores a personal narrative concerning the portrait, and speculates on possible psychodynamic unconscious motives. A key concept is that of jouissance as theorized by Jacques Lacan. This concept links the author’s tendency to enjoy a rational problematic approach to drawing, as evidenced in the use of the Harris Matrix, and investigation of more psychical questions of such enjoyment’s origin. Finally, a more literal linking metaphor is to have unearthed from the portrait the figure’s pearl necklace, which had become obscured by the cross-sectional bars of depth.