The writer Theresa Kishkan discusses her new memoir The Art of Looking Back: A Painter, An Obsession, and Reclaiming the Gaze (Thornapple Press, 2026), with Joseph Planta.
 |
The Art of Looking Back: A Painter, An Obsession, and Reclaiming he Gaze by Theresa Kishkan (Thornapple Press, 2026).
Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: The Art of Looking Back [1] |
Text of the introduction by Joseph Plana:
I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.
Theresa Kishkan joins me again. She’s just published a fascinating, captivating memoir, The Art of Looking Back: A Painter, An Obsession, and Reclaiming the Gaze. At the age of 23, she’d just finished school and was still living with her parents in Victoria. She was about to go to Europe for an extended time, but just before she meets and models for the artist Jack Wilkinson. He had been a member of The Limners, a group of artists who came together in the 1960s, not just painters like Wilkinson, but also sculptors, ceramicists, and other visual artists, including Maxwell Bates, Myfanwy Pavelic, Robert De Castro, and Robin Skelton, among others. Theresa knew some of them socially, so it wasn’t like Wilkinson was a stranger. He soon pursues Theresa as a model, and in candid and often personal letters proposes much more than an artist/muse relationship. He’s married, but he claims the marriage is ending. She’s not interested in any of this of course, but she doesn’t say much. She leaves for Europe, and when she comes back years later with a husband, John Pass, and children, he finds her and the letters continue. The book explores how in retrospect, she realises the incongruity of it all. She sees on rereading the letters how inappropriate Wilkinson was, especially when he propositions Theresa, but also when he discusses the earlier obsession he had with his daughter. The book is awfully timely, as our culture tries to reckon with the destructive male gaze, and try to do away with revenge porn, something that’s similar in how Wilkinson depicts Theresa in his art. Theresa is candid in the book about how the portrait of her in Wilkinson’s art has not been something she’s reconciled with, despite the piece that’s on the cover of the book, hangs in her home, something she’d see on a daily basis. I’ll ask her about the work she’s gone through to get to the place of addressing this important part of her life, and the ongoing relationship we have with the art of artists who are not just complicated but problematic. Visit www.theresakishkan.com [2] for her website, and her regular blog. Theresa Kishkan is the author of sixteen books which include books of memoir, essays, poetry, and novellas. This new book is published by Thornapple Press. We spoke earlier this month, with Theresa joining me from her home on the Sechelt Peninsula. Please welcome back to the Planta: On the Line program, Theresa Kishkan; Ms. Kishkan, good morning.
Podcast: Play in new window [3] | Download [3] (29.5MB)
Subscribe: RSS [4]