Astronautical Painting. Jeremy Geddes as Major Tom

Abstract

This article develops a philosophical hermeneutics on the work of contemporary New Zealand visual artist Jeremy Geddes, presenting the hypothesis that something akin to astronautical painting is hidden within his canvases. To this end, the single-case method was employed, selecting two of Geddes’s paintings as units of analysis for a paradigmatic case. Drawing on Jacques Derrida’s theory of borders, the work reveals that Geddes’s astronautical painting ultimately constitutes a commentary on an artificial and exoteric ontopsychological realm, especially if one accepts that the spacesuits of his astronauts can simultaneously be considered a kind of anti-gravity hardware. The borders of the works, which in Derrida’s world can take on infinite forms, appear in Jeremy Geddes’s paintings “binding a piece of the paradigm,” relativizing nature and enveloping the bodies of the cosmonauts in an orbit of meaning. Simultaneously, Geddes’ borders impress as the “keystone” of his painting, independent of any possible sublime, heroic, or even tragic undertones we might detect in his oil paintings. One of the most relevant metaphors in the article seems to be the following: Jeremy Geddes as Major Tom.