#feminist artwork

These are some experiments I did after I’d decided on what all the text I was using would be. I did paper cutting and laid them over different papers, and cut out letters making them into stamps, then inked them and embossed them, and scanned in all the letters and turned them into different colours. I think these weren’t as effective because of the font, because the swirly letters rather than bold, straight letters don’t look as eye catching.

I took a lot of macro photographs of my skin, showing the hair and imperfections. I then edited them all so I turned them into two tone images just using pink and blue. I really like what they look like and want to incorporate them into some of my final pages, as the surface and texture for the text to go on top of. 

I used white helvitica with some of my statements over the top of the skin.

I took the photographs and tried some experiments on different paper types. I did the first two on shiney, photographic paper, and the second two on normal paper. I sewed the words into the paper with embroidery thread, going back to the idea of using a typically nurturing and feminine craft practice, which contrasts with the hairy body and the words i’d sewn. I then used inks, embossing powder and glittery nail varnishes, and put them into the images and lastly took a heat gun and heated it up. It burnt into the paper and with the photographic paper it caused unpredictable cracks in the paper, with some of the top layer peeling off. Using the glitter connotes something feminine and girly, but contrasting with the body hair questions these gendered stereotypes. The burning into the paper represent the idea of destroying femininity, or destroying the unnecessary standards that society creates for, and expects from women.

these are some other experiments I did, using a large, bold font. This gives a powerful effect, portraying an angry tone. I tried some over the skin photo, some over coloured backgrounds, and some using the ink, embossing, glitter and burning technique. I like the last one best because I think the collaged effect with the different textures, and the varied angles of the letters looks the most interesting.