Story Telling With Art
Peace War-War Peace
40 x 40
Mixed Media
3200.
The art of transforming ourselves with make-up and masks, a universal art form that existed long before we applied pigments to cave walls or boards or canvases has inspired a new series of works titled Hidden Identities. This is the second in the series, Peace War-War Peace.
Detail of Peace War-War Peace
Once again I approached the canvas with an idea, the idea of representing opposing themes of Peace and War. You may ask why? What inspired this theme?
The day I completed the first canvas in this series, Yellowhammer Dreams, I stood at my kitchen sink cleaning brushes and saw out the window a scattering of feathers on the lawn. Apparently a dove had given its life to a larger creature. Because the previous work utilized feathers I was out the door to collect these distinctly marked beauties.
Detail of Peace War-War Peace with Dove Feather.
Immediate thoughts that the dove represents peace filled my mind, causing the opposing thought of war to surface. I recalled that within my recent research about tribal face and body painting I had read one theory that Plains Indian Warriors frequently used a hand print on their faces to symbolize success in hand to hand combat. The artistic brain started to fire.
Detail of Peace War-War Peace
Back into the studio, blank canvas onto easel, layers of paint applied with drying time between, more layers of paint, allowing the pigment to become thick and cracked, a texture that is reminiscent of how these materials dry as a result of movement of the face and body. I cut and scored through the layers to add texture and line, then painted my hands and pressed them onto the canvas, added raffia and the dove feathers. Over a period of several days this work came together in an intuitive way, inspired by historical face and body painting, telling the story of Peace and War.
Peace War-War Peace
40 x 40
Mixed Media
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NICE work!
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