AutoAbstraction: An Autotheoretical Analysis of a Postfeminist Painter’s Praxis

Dominique Hersey, G (2026) AutoAbstraction: An Autotheoretical Analysis of a Postfeminist Painter’s Praxis. Doctoral thesis, Liverpool John Moores University.

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Abstract

AutoAbstraction: An Autotheoretical Analysis of a Postfeminist Painter’s Praxis considers my creative practice-based PhD research project, which includes thirty paintings from a portfolio of about seventy artworks that I created between 2021 and 2025, several artist interviews, a U.S.-based solo exhibition with a visiting artist residency and public talk, two British-based group shows, two more public talks, and a written thesis. As I reflected in a 2022 interview, “For me, painting is a sort of psychic or psychological reclamation process.” This retrieval of self, space, and voice frames AutoAbstraction. The research portfolio I offer is of 21st-century abstract paintings shaped by intuition, somatic experience, color theory and art history. My palettes were inspired by my own body’s colorations––olive complexion, brown eyes and dark curly hair. My painting materials include canvas, linen, and acrylic paint. With them I explore diverse abstract strategies––automatism, gesturalism, and abstracted graffiti-like mark making. Philosophically, my research grounds itself in phenomenology and feminist aesthetics. Writings by Carolyn Korsmeyer, Peg Brand, and Mira Schor are especially influential. First feminist art historian Linda Nochlin’s scholarship, and postmodern art historian-art theorist Laurie Schneider Adams’ texts have since the 1990s, significantly shaped my thinking, so also influence my project. Methodologically I use autotheory, a literary theory popularized a decade ago by Paul B. Preciado and Maggie Nelson, and expanded more recently by Lauren Fournier. The approach allows for the weaving together of autobiography, autoethnography, art history, and feminist theories using a synthesized scholarly-memoiristic writing style. I apply it throughout, including to analyze twenty of my praxis paintings alongside twenty art historical works by significant painters who have influenced my painting. This acts as the core of the thesis. The larger project contributes to the evolving discourse of 21st-century abstract painting. It arrives as the origin of abstraction is being retold. Julia Voss, Iris Müller-Westermann and others challenge the claim that abstraction was a masculinist invention of Wasily Kandinsky. Their research shows that Hilma af Klint of De Fem (The Five) produced the first Western abstract paintings in 1906. Her art, notebook writing, and documented methods have led to the current regendering of abstraction as a feminist-queer painting genre. My thesis centers my creative practice and findings within this unfolding narrative.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	abstract painting; abstraction; aesthetics; analysis; art; art history; artist; autoabstraction; autotheory; contemporary; creative; feminist; feminist aesthetics; gender; identity; painting; phenomenology; postfeminist; praxis; research
Subjects:	N Fine Arts > ND Painting
Divisions:	Art and Creative Industries
Date of acceptance:	14 May 2026
Date Deposited:	20 Jul 2026 14:02
Last Modified:	20 Jul 2026 14:04
DOI or ID number:	10.24377/LJMU.t.00028652
Supervisors:	Carr, A and Ferrell, R
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/28652

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