The Upside Down

For my project I used a blank canvas, twigs I found outside to represent branches on a tree and its roots down below, black, brown, and sky blue acrylic paint, cut outs of newspaper and magazines, gorilla glue, and lastly some cotton balls. I carefully and intricately placed the pieces of twigs in certain areas that felt right to me on the canvas with the gorilla glue and it had to dry over night before starting anything else. Next I took a paint brush and painted around and under the branches with the colors that corresponds to the theme. The top of the painting is a bright color to symbolize peace, happiness, and awareness, which is how I see myself as. It is also messy so symbolize that no body is perfect. The bottom with the roots are brown one to symbolize that its roots and dirt and brown in some cases is a gloomy color which befits the context because this is how I believe and know society views me as an individual. They aren't positive things so I decided to give them a "negative" color. It is also painted with perfect lines and doesn't spill over into the positive colors because society expects everyone to be perfect so it must be in line. 

The quotes that influenced my piece were “People have described her as broken and fragile, but she was strong and accomplished a tremendous amount in her lifetime.” "The self-portrait showed to others the status of the person depicted. In this sense, what we have come to call our own "image" the interface of the way we think we look and the way others see us." And, “The Selfie depicts the drama of our own daily performance of ourselves in tension with our inner emotions that may or may not be expressed as we wish.” and work that influenced me were the pieces composed by Hannah Hoch and the artists known as Dayani Munoz from the Njcu art gallery. 

Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada Through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany

Transcendence Series 

My project relates to the themes we have been discussing because it addresses self awareness and how society views me as an individual much like how Hannah Hoch addresses the anti dadaists or how Frida Kahlo accepts herself for who she is and isn't afraid to flaunt it. Contemporary media plays a role in identity, cultural and societal norms because everyone sees on the media how one person acts or lives and how liked they are and the other person either tries one up them in how they live or be just like them because they envy them. However, it isn't smart to look through other peoples windows because since it is contemporary media it could all just be for show. No one exposes their true colors there because they want to be favored so they alter everything about themselves. These themes are addressed in the work of the artists we have learned because they don't conform to such things. If anything they rebel against it, like Frida with her unibrow.



In my work I used cut out words from magazines and newspapers to paste handing off of the branches as leaves that basically are words of encouragement, sentences that relate to how society treats me, whether willingly or not, as a gay black woman. I painted the torso of the woman black for obvious reasons, on the top the lion is supposed to depict bravery contrasting the crying woman on the roots for the fact that society says as a woman im helpless and can't take care of myself. I put a candle to depict that I am a wholesome individual yet because I am black the world automatically thinks that i'm violent or here to start trouble because of my skin color, for that put a screaming woman. I have a bird to indicate that I am free to be who I am without any ties from my past, contrasting the cotton on the bottom that depicts racism and how society is stuck in their ways and the past but I won't be. Lastly, my choice of sexuality I decided to put a road because this is the road I chose to go down because it makes me happy however society thinks otherwise they believe my choice affects everyone and myself negatively hence why there is a fire there.

The Upside Down

The Upside Down

The Upside Down