Saturday, 17 March 2012

Arab Spring

I painted my 'heads' as if they were football tribes:


I used acrylic paint and painted them as Tunisia, Libya and Egypt using the national colours.  These were the notes that I made as I was painting them.  Tribal - women concealed - makeup - back to historical imagery (Cyrene statues) - totem - women unheard - football images - handpainted = made themselves - polystyrene - rock like when painted - the Egyptian one's nose was slightly damage and reminded me of the Sphinx (enigmatic). 

I was doing this work at uni so then had a tutorial (AND my last two modules marks had been 'found').
Notes are:  "Pay close attention to the contextual references you have.  The use of molded polystyrene clashes with the desire to have something that is handmade - unique.  Think carefully about the form this work will take.  By next week we would like to see a version of this work that uses something other than polystyrene heads and some alternative forms of paint application".

Consequently I have produced a number of versions using Mod Roc (the first one completely collapsed) -



The first one was directly over the existing polystyrene 'shape' while the second was using a balloon as a forme.

I have also been playing around with the existing heads :


The scarf is one that I bought in Tunisia.


This one has candle wax applied.  Thoughts are fire, melting of hope etc.


I thought that this was an interesting picture - of Syria from The Week 16 March 2012.  Of course the paint also acts as camouflage.

More work to do .... 

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