exhibition text My piece called “salt in the wound” focuses on a girl who feels that she cant speak out about her mental health that is clouding her head. The work has the emphasis of this by getting rid of her mouth and her eyes. Getting rid of the “window of the soul” and her mouth makes her impossible to read. She is sitting in water, ocean washing the blood over her face, getting salt in the “wound”. Society makes it seem that when women have issues they need to keep them quiet to themselves and not speak up about them, or they are portrayed in a negative light. Feeling like they are drowning with their problems.
Title : Salt in the wound Size: 24 cm x 20 cm Medium: oil pastel on canvas Completion February 2023 |
inspiration
My inspiration for this project was Shani Rhys James. She is known for having an intense psychological power over her works, her main subjects for her pieces are female figures more often than not they are of herself. Her portrait “Combing her hair” inspired me by the look of the work and texture. She also inspired me by her way of using a female figure as her subject, the female figure in any sort of context if its art or historical events always intrigues my interest. In Rhys James works she continues to look at the relentlessness of life and with women as her focus it tells their perspective on why life is relentless for them. In her work that I am focused on she has her female figure brushing her hair, its a simple action that many women do on a day to day basis however the deeper meaning of her work is to show the feminine obligation to pretty oneself.
Her deeper meanings to what may look like a simple action to ones eye also really inspired me. However like i said before anything that comes down to women and how they are treated in the world has always interested and inspired me.
Her deeper meanings to what may look like a simple action to ones eye also really inspired me. However like i said before anything that comes down to women and how they are treated in the world has always interested and inspired me.
planning
My project was not my most difficult project to plan for, going into this project i had a idea already on what i want to do. However that being said most of my planning went into the lay out of how I wanted my final project to look like. In my sketch book I did a really rough sketch on how I wanted to lay everything out on my canvas. I knew from the beginning that I wanted my focus of the project to be on the girl i drew so I planned to put her in the middle and everything fell into place after making that decision.
Experimentation
This wasn't my first time using oil pastels, However it was my first time using them on canvas. I first started out by using them in my sketch book to just get a feel on the brand I bought for this project, I then bought the canvas that I wanted to work with. The ones I bought came in a pack of three so I used one of thee to practice the oil pastel on the canvas.
I learned pretty quickly that using pencil with the oil pastel (to sketch out what i wanted to draw) wasn't going to work. The oil pastel just smudged the pencil and left a ugly gray color underneath and I wasn't happy with how it looked.
I then tried with colored pencil and chose that it was the best option to sketch my project out before putting the oil pastel on because it did not smudge.
When I put the oil pastels on the canvas I learned that I needed to use them in thick layers or you could see alot of the texture of the canvas coming through and it wasn't looking right.
I learned pretty quickly that using pencil with the oil pastel (to sketch out what i wanted to draw) wasn't going to work. The oil pastel just smudged the pencil and left a ugly gray color underneath and I wasn't happy with how it looked.
I then tried with colored pencil and chose that it was the best option to sketch my project out before putting the oil pastel on because it did not smudge.
When I put the oil pastels on the canvas I learned that I needed to use them in thick layers or you could see alot of the texture of the canvas coming through and it wasn't looking right.