This has been a breakthrough week for me! On Wednesdays I see a study skills tutor who helps me with my dyslexia, Karen. I asked her to look through my sketchbook. We got chatting about the experiments I had tried out, whilst researching my art project theme, ‘The Goddess.’ I mentioned to Karen how I had wanted to make my ‘The Goddess Weeps’ digital artwork, into one of a pair of artworks. I explained that I was dissatisfied with the second piece which I called ‘In God we Trust’. I had tried a few different ways to make it work but hadn’t been able to resolve it. So, I decided to settle for just the one piece, ‘The Goddess Weeps’.
‘The Goddess Weeps’ is about the destruction of the rain-forest this summer 2019.
Her fresh viewpoint was really helpful. Karen understood what I was trying to say with this piece, she came up with a good suggestion. She suggested covering the whole of the background with a translucent dollar bill, instead of placing the dollar bill in the centre (as I had previously). This way ‘In God we Trust’ would balance nicely with ‘The Goddess Weeps’ which also had a background completely covered with a translucent image.
It worked!! hoorah! This new second image ‘In God we Trust’ is more direct in it’s message than it’s predecessor. It highlights important cultural and political issues, inviting questions about authority, corruption, power, exploitation and greed. This two artworks are the same size, but one is landscape and the other portrait in format. There are links between the two, but also major differences; symbolic of the similarities and differences between the two archetypes of Goddess and God. The ‘Goddess’ in the first image represents nature, emotions and the life force. The ‘God’ referred to in the second image (on the dollar bill) could suggest the worship of money, big business, corruption and destruction. It is my intention that this pair of digital artworks highlight and question these issues in a fine art context.
I was so pleased with the final result, I feel that this work is resolved now. It’s all been because of Karen’s helpful suggestion and the skills I’ve learned in my digital lessons. With these new skills, I have been able to express concepts digitally. I would have found it much harder to get my message across with traditional art methods, so this is a breakthrough for me. It’s something I am going to take forward and make part of my future studio practice.
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