Moving forward and Exploring

 

I decided to throw myself into experimentation without questioning my ideas too much as I have a slight tendency to overthink. These body prints, more precisely boob prints, were really fun to make and I experimented with the differences between acrylic and body paint. I love the vibrancy of the acrylic paint and the effect that the pigment in the colour makes on the page. I referred back to the first prints that I had made in my sketchbook and use the technique of shading the breasts as if a light source was coming from above. I like how this will affect turned out but I'm interested in other ways of colouring the chest to create print. When I used body paint I moistened the page with a conditioner and water mix spray that I improvised from home. This technique works surprisingly well and I managed to get a lot of detail from my skin texture into the print however I felt the body paint if anything became a bit too muddy as all the colours blended together rather than defining separate areas. I experimented with applying the paint using a sponge and a palette knife. The sponge added the texture of the skin to the print and the palette knife created harsh lines on a soft body and created an interesting effect when printed onto the page. I really liked this project and I feel like it's a beginning for me running with this idea as far as I can. Although when I first presented these to a tutor I was met with feedback that I didn't feel helped me, after picking myself up and reinstating that confidence about this project in myself I brought them back into the studio to bring them to the guillotine and frame them in a way that looked more considered.

When I was cutting the prints I remembered the work of David Samuel Stern that I looked at last year. His woven portraits added depth to his photography that I really connected with. I decided to try cutting a couple of my prints and try and weave them together to see what effects it would create. I used two contrasting colours and two different mediums on the prints that I cut, and I chose to slice one vertically and the other horizontally. When I was first playing with the strips I experimented with spreading them out and seeing what a stretched out version of my prints looked like on a white background. The black boobs took on multiple different forms and reminded me of a fish or landscape or even a barcode when it was placed against a white background. The barcode idea resonated with me and I decided to number each strip on the front in a way turning the body print into a product and bringing up lots of ideas surrounding how women's bodies are objectified and marketed.

When I got home I decided to try weaving them together the didn't get chance in the studio seeing as we only have limited amount of time there. The first thing I tried was interchanging every even number leaving me with two sets of strips to weave together as I thought it would be more interesting and more abstract if I separated them.

I first chose to weave them together leaving a gap where the missing strip would be with each colour. The fact that my boobs are quite symmetrical I feel made this weave quite boring but it does have a knitted feel to it like a dual meaning of female based practices because of home crafts being associated to women for a lot of history. I wasn't super in love with this idea though so I took it apart and tried something else.

Even just placing the mixed strips together gave a stripey effect that was far more abstract and interesting to look at in my opinion. I liked how mean and suspicious these boobs looked at me. The nipples became eyes and I felt watched by my own boobs. This confrontational idea brought up lots of past memories of feeling watched when I walked down the street or being Called being whistled at having my arse slapped as I walked down the street to university. I constantly feel watched and I love this narrative switching that observation around to make my body watch the viewer. I chose this pink print purely because it was quite vibrant and I wasn't super into the print on its own however there is almost a threatening quality to that colour that reminds me of Aposemitism in the animal world where animals use bold colours as a warning coloration to protect themselves against predators by looking poisonous. Another part of the animal world includes butterflies that have fake eyes on their wings to deter predators. I absolutely love this concept of my body watching the people usually watch me and I'm very excited to see where it pushes me further.

I then wove the two separate collection of strips that I had selected together one with both prints facing the same way and the other with one print upside down to see the different effects that they would create. It makes me smile that I considered taking my piercing out of my boob to create a more realistic looking print because my piercing has created an eye shape perfectly which adds a somewhat confrontational feeling to these woven pieces. We now faced with four eyes that are hidden in some form of abstraction but if anything they are hiding which makes them even more intimidating. I look forward to continuing down this path of experimentation.