Exhibition: February 1st, 2021
"Identity & Culture"
I wanted to use my art to express different aspects of culture, time, and cultural perception. I used influences from cultural perceptions around me, my lineage’s cultural ties, and my own journey to create art works that make comments on these different influences.
Many of my pieces are done with acrylic paint, as this is the first medium I worked with and the one I am most comfortable using, but I have widened my abilities when experimenting with new mediums and materials. Each of my pieces I have taken from an aspect of myself and the influences of the world and culture around me. Overall, my works relate to family, heritage, and culture, body image and its social perception, and my inner exploration. I have pieces that are on the smaller side, my clay piece “Quilted Journey” and pieces such as “Marena/Mara” and “Only HIS Jewel” that take up a lot of space and pull the audience in with their scale. Many of my pieces have a contrast between dark, usually in the background, with brighter colours as the focus.
The first piece I made of the works selected for my exhibition was “Only HIS Jewel”, large acrylic painting representing the oppression many women face and the violence too many faces; stylistically inspired by the artist Ewa Juszkiewicz and her use of creating pieces where the subject is in period clothing with their face covered by flowers, hair, or other objects. I believe that this is one of the most important pieces to me, but not one of my favourite in my execution and skill.
My most recent piece, “Metanoia”, oil pastel and acrylic, is my favourite aesthetically. I found the textured mirror frame and decided to clean it up and stretch a canvas over the back. I took a canvas and used oil pastel to sketch what I wanted, then decided to have a clean black acrylic background on the right. I used freehand and sketch like movements with the oil pastels to give the body shading and colour. I then used white acrylic paint to give her fun little stretch marks, pulled the staples from the canvas and glued it onto the back of the frame. At first the figure was meant to be a reflection, but then with the addition of tag at the bottom right to make it an artwork of a painting.