Inspiration
My technical inspiration for this piece came from Georgia O'Keeffe's various flower paintings. O'Keeffe combined the movements of abstraction and realism to focus on nature. She focused on colors, light, flowers, and nature. I also drew inspiration from the theory that O'Keeffe's paintings weren't only about flowers that they had a double meaning associated with female genitalia and feminist empowerment. This led me to the feminist movement. Feminist art looked to tell the female story the only stories ever told were from a male perspective. I wanted to use this in my piece, combined with O'Keeffe's aesthetic.
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Planning
During my planning process I was focused on learning more about Georgia O'Keeffe's aesthetics and visual focus. My first sketch was inspired by her skull drawings . I drew a bull skull that was representational of toxic masculinity and the flowers of female expression that could bloom out of the death of a patriarchal culture. This led my second sketch with was of the 3 panels, the first was to be a bull skull with a desolate dull background. The second was going to be the bull skull falling out of the middle of the frame to represent the fall of the patriarchy . The final frame was to resemble my first sketch with the flowers blooming out of the fallen skull.
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Experimentation and Process
I began by stretching three 1 foot by 2 foot canvases and gessoing them. I started painting the middle canvas first. I used purple, red, and yellow. I painted a yellow double teardrop shape. From there I outlined it with red and then filled in the background with purple. For the last canvas I created several of the double ended teardrops and outlined them with different shades of purple and red. I overlapped the shapes and filled in remaining white spaces with yellow. While painting these three canvases my idea strayed further and further from my planning sketches. I grew to want the paintings to be more abstract and representational with no definable shapes. Beginning with the middle canvas allowed me to make connections to the left and the right canvas easily as I went. I wanted the message to be clear and portrayed in more simplistic lines and curve with a completely organic and natural feel. I really experimented with color while painting these especially in the last panel. I only premixed the purple and every other color was random combinations of yellow, brown, red, white and purple. I wanted to do this to make sure no two shapes were alike.
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Reflection
My final paintings turned out far better than I had originally imagined. My idea really progressed with the painting process. I learned acrylic is useful for layering and terrible for blending. As this was one of my first large-scale acrylic paintings with this much blending it grew frustrating at times how fast the paint would dry. If i were to redo this process I would defiantly opt for oil or even water colors as I think water color would have an interesting effect. Out side of material the idea of how to make three cohesive paintings really challenged me. That is what caused me to stray from my original ideas and sketches. After painting my middle canvas, what was originally only meant to be the background, became my final piece. I thought the purely organic curves were striking and portrayed my message of women's sexuality being defined in a singular way. This led to my idea for the last canvas. I wanted to show my vision of a future where women can express themselves freely and diversely. I no longer wanted to include the bull's skull because I felt it no longer fit in the message nor the paintings. I did the first panel last simply because I no longer new how to make it cohesive with the other two and still representational of the suppression of women's expression. I finally drew on the idea of muting the colors and thinning out the shapes to represent of women's expression was hidden and shrunk away from everyday life. This project really taught me how to grow with the process and think creatively.
ACT
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
Artists in the feminist movement all had different things to say with the same underlying thought of critical change through bringing harsh issues to light. The feminist movement was more than a collective of women coming together to create an art platform. During the feminist movement women's art reflected key cultural issues. They shined light on topics like body acceptance and women's rights.