No One Will Love You If You’re Unattractive
For this project I was really inspired by Foucault’s idea of a Heterotopia, which is described as a place consisting of multiple layers of meaning in relationship to other places. Foucault goes into further detail by giving a mirror analogy which was the basis for my project. The idea of a mirror was used as a metaphor for a utopia, reality and unreality. Foucault states that the image in the mirror is the unreality because it is a contradiction to reality, basically the image is either what you want to see or is far stretched. I wanted to play with this dual meaning concept by creating a mask, it was also a great chance for me to include my field which is makeup art. The mask I made is two-faced, where one side is ‘pretty’ and the other not so pretty. I felt that this two-faced concept was best for visually depicting the duality and contradictions Foucault was discussing in his writing.
There were 3 phases to making the mask: the sculpting phase, casting/molding, and then painting. The mask was made of RD 407 (foam latex) and was painted using a combination of water activated paints and cream paints. The mask also features a couple of dental cast resin teeth as well as safety pins for detail. I also used clear nail polish to give that shiny, wet effect seen on the peeled back eye and lips.
