The Puppet

 

I created this piece partly from inspiration from a previous piece in my book where the focus was a puppet, but mostly because at the time I was planning a photo-shoot. I used this image to portray what I was trying to achieve within the photo-shoot as I was finding it difficult to describe it to others as it was completely from the imagination. the idea of the piece is that the restraints are causing the girl to crack and shatter; it is like a metaphor for how the strains of society cause us to break and crack. I think that this is an important theme to have within my work as societies develop sociological norms towards behaviours/acts such as body modification, although the imagery does not contain any links to body modification, there is a deep underlying message of the prejudice many people face from being modified as a result of the society they live in being non-acceptant of appearances.  I think one of my strongest skills within art is pencil drawing and so I decided to use pencils for the creation of this piece because there is a strong need for fine detail in some areas which would be unachievable with other equipment. I think that pencil drawing is my biggest strength and I would like to eventually create a drawn final piece.

The freakshow posters

 

 

 These pieces were inspired by Sailor Jerry's style, in the sense that they are very cartoonized. I wanted to use the idea of a 16th century traditional freak show in my work because of the way that they ostracize people with visual deformities, in the same way that society still discriminates against people who do not classify as 'normal' today, which is exactly what I wanted to bring out in my work. I was inspired to use this idea by a website I was shown by a tutor, it had colourful posters similar to the ones above, however what really interested me was the old photos taken of the 'freaks', they were taken using very very old film and all of the images looked very macabre and sinister. most of them definitely showed a lot of isolation as well as they were taken in empty large circus tents with just one single chair in the centre and nothing or nobody else behind. Most of the 'freaks' also shwed an overwhelming sense of sadness, this is why it attracted me and I think that if I had have had more time and the resources to do I so i would like to have made a larger print of these images as poster sized pictures and done a photoshoot similar to the ones I had been looking at in the ame macabre fashion.