Overview:
For our final project we were open to focus on our choice of materials and methods explored through this course syllabus. The assignment was open to interpretation and self expression, however we were required to select two artists from our visit to “The Long Run” exhibition at the MoMA. Who’s work that we felt was most loathing.
Materials & Tools Used:
- Plexi Glass
- Vinyl Sticker
- Black Foam
- Double sided tape
- Adhesive spray
- Gold paint
- Wrapping Paper
- Etching Needle
- Adobe Illustrator
About the Piece:
History, is a sculpture that ignites and motivates the idea of women empowerment, with a focus on women of colour. It explores the idea of growth and transformation of women from colonial times to todays modern and futuristic generation. This being said our generation is largely driven by pop culture. Hence, I wanted to focus on a women of colour who inspires our current generation through pop culture.
As I did my research it was evident that Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter was one of the most influential woman worldwide. I decided to create my work around her with the statement of the change she made in her appearance at the 2018 Coachella music festival. Her appearance at this festival was quite critical as she was not only the first African American women to headline the the festival performance, but has artfully represented through musicality and performance, the richness in cultural blackness and aesthetics with a commitment to showcase feminism and freedom. She also inaugurated her appearance with the black national anthem regardless of the lack of diversity in the audience population. The artist also celebrated Black history with a focus on a college theme where she made references to historically-black fraternities and sororities simply through her clothing and music. She also played quotes from Civil Right activist Malcolm who acclaimed black women as band played melodies from Nigerian legendary anti-colonial singer Fela Kuti, who criticised colonialism.
This being said after my research on her biography and performance being a women of colour and a student currently in an arts based college, it inspired me to show case that every single girl can make a change. A change that can make an impact and bring about a legacy of oneself regardless of what type of field their in, they can change History.
Process:
After the visit to the exhibit we had write a written responses in order to identify the artists who’s work we didn’t enjoy and how we further plant to develop an final project idea. Attached here is the document to the response Response to Artwork-1jely6w
Once we had our final ideas completely sorted through, the next step was to create a rough sketch of a prototype. For which I drew a pencil sketch as seen in the image below. I focused on creating my figure in relation to the costume worn on during the Grammys performance in 2018.
For the next step I began sketching the final version of the figure and text. Here I decided to have the figure position itself similar to that of Virgin Mary as resembled in the image next to the sketch.
The font that I used to create the sticker was a hand drawn gothic styles sketch that was drawn with black ink, as illustrated in Figure 4. This style of font was show to resemble the overthrown idea of women in colonial times.
For my next step I began transforming the above sketches into an Illustrator drawing. This step was done in order to cut my figure out of a plexiglass and also to make the sticker of the text
On the plexiglass of the model since I wanted it to have more dimension to it, I etched several parts of the details on the figure. This was done in oder to create a sense of interaction with the audience to look deeper into the figure.
Once these details were completed I began working on the base of the model. As I wanted my figure elevated I created a three tiered staircase using black foam board which also represents the growing awareness and unity of the rise of women of colour. The foam board was delicately wrapped a with a black and gold hand made paper which can be seen in the image below. In order to have tI also created a back support with the same foam board, for the black plexi sheet in order to have the sheet standing straight, which is evident in the image below
From the base I started fixing the piece together, where I began by aligning the stickers that were quite delicate due to its how thin and intricate they were. In order to do so I first placed a T-square horizontally ato identify the base line at which the text is to be aligned. The next step was to carefully remove the stickers from the sheet and place it onto the plexi glass which don with the help of a sharp blade.
Once I placed all the pieces together the final model looked as present as in the images below
Purpose of Material Choice & Symbolism:
Foam Board: Women are often associated with being gentle and soft. Now, a foam board has a similar characteristic and I personally feel that being soft isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact I feel its an important attribute for a person to have because this attribute signifies that of strength. Gentleness breeds peace and calmness which brings about a clear mind in decision making, whether this may be in business or home like environment. Being gentle also helps in gaining a trust with another individual which is another critical element in life because if you want to growth in any form of relationship in individual should be able to feel the sense of trust.
Hand made wrapping paper: This paper that is made from Nepal is used to support women labourers who are underpaid but yet their product brings about a sense of delicacy, another positive attribute that is often connotated with women.
Plexi Glass: For this project I used black and transparent plexi glass in order to create a more futuristic minimal sensation. A glimpse into a future for people who look at the piece. I used transparent plexi glass so that people could look at this empowering women Icon recognise her legacy and then look through it, to see themselves. The black wall like plexi glass is used as mirror (As seen in the image below.) to have young girls like myself look at themselves and then look up to the stickers and identify that they can make a change.
Design Choice for the figure: Coming from Indian/ Hindu ethnicity surrounded by catholics. I wanted figure out some way resemble a combination of these two religious ideologies. Hence, I decided to focus on her 2018 Grammys outfit. That signified Mother Mary and Durga, the Hindu Goddess and Mother of the Universe. I also choose this outfit because the artist was pregnant at the time. Often women are pinned down and are told that they cannot do their work well, while they are pregnant and I wanted to illustrate that they completely underestimate the strength of a women.
Reflection:
The project provided me the opportunity to unravel an expressive part of me that has been in me for a while but wasn’t really given a platform to showcase this thought. It was interesting to see how this came about from from picking the two random artists who’s work I disliked. With this project I was also able to go back and overcome technical troubles that I had with my previous work in regards to labs that we used for this course.