Identitty

I chose the subject matter of breasts as I felt like the topic of breasts is very It’s mostly a taboo topic and usually it’s also a very personal topic but I wanted to explore the various points of view towards breasts.

FIRST PERSON POV

Breasts in the point of view of a Male-Female Transgender is One Step To Completion.

For this work I used the puzzle pieces to create the idea of ‘missing pieces’. The puzzle pieces were arranged to outline the flesh and mimic the body shape of women (Curves) and to have a masculine image underneath the puzzle pieces where the breasts would be and to have the outline of the breasts. This was both physical and metaphorical in sense that it is a physical transition but also an internal transition and I felt that the idea of using the puzzle pieces allowed the idea to be better conveyed and not become too ‘science textbooky’. The pieces arranged on the face is also slowly coming together to form a new identity. For this work I had to cut up puzzle pieces to fit the body outlines. I wanted this work to also have a background different from the rest because I wanted to represent a sense of void so I used black and felt like it was more appropriate for this work alone.

Personal Thoughts :

This was actually my favourite out of all the six because I just think the use of puzzle pieces here really fit and it was actually the first concept that was solidified so I was really excited to work on this one. I also had problems regarding the wordings because I wanted to be accurate in the portrayal of breasts from the POV of a transgender and at first I was thinking ‘Completion’ or ‘Identity’ but then I asked one of my transgender friend and she told me that it was ‘simply one step to completion’ and I used it to build the puzzle pieces around that concept and left some pieces jaggered on the face and empty around the neck so the boobs are just one step in transitioning.

Breasts in the point of view of an Anorexic is Out of place

For this work I wanted to use the puzzle pieces to represent the breasts as ‘excess pieces’ and that was obviously out of place. So I made use of scale and colour contrast to really make the puzzle piece stand out. While the skeleton is painted with gaudy and dull colours the puzzle pieces were painted with bright flesh colours. Also a kind of commentary between the healthy and unhealthy and how an anorexic would see the breasts as unwanted and out of place eventhough having natural fat (breasts) is healthy. So the skeleton was first painted in acrylic and scanned and then had small mini flesh puzzle pieces layers around to represent the little skin on an anorexic woman. Also pieces together half a face to give the idea of femininity to the skeleton.

Personal Thoughts :

I really enjoyed doing this one because I love painting skeletons(Weird I know) but I really liked the illustrated feel of this and how simple it was. The problem I had with this was how to show the puzzle piece as ‘out of place’ and for this one scale was the major factor because I had to get bigger puzzle pieces to really make it stand out and chose the pieces that looked like breasts in the more basic shape. That was also how I decided to not crudely represent breasts like just in your face but use the shapes to suggest the anatomy of breasts.

Breasts in the point of view of a Breast Cancer Survivor is a Medal of Healing

For this work I wanted to take on a more hands on approach. So for the breasts they are represented (kinda like the transgender one) in a way where the puzzle pieces are missing but I wanted to use stitching to show patching and healing. So I had cut out puzzle pieces from the breasts and other parts of the body and then stitched them together to show that a survivor is also transitioning and that the flesh itself does not define them anymore. So instead of having a background for the missing piece I left it backgroundless and able to be seen through the threads to show that the survivor is not defined by the breasts anymore and that the breasts represents a sort of societal judgement that isn’t imposed on her anymore and that superficiality in terms of breasts does not apply to the survivor. So the sewing was really tough because I didn’t want the paper to break and tear and then I would have to restart so that was tiring.. and using red a very sexual colour, I wanted to show how a survivor is not define by the societal imposed sexuality standards. The stitches on the face represents the healing and reforming of a new identity for the survivor. Also adding on to the idea of playfulness in this work I placed a medal around her neck to literally represent the medal of the breast (overcoming cancer) and using pink because it’s the colour of breast cancer awareness.

Personal Thoughts :

I wanted to represent the removed breasts as triumphant and I had a hrd time thinking about how should I represent it and the idea of sewing came to me and the biggest challenge was the routine of poking the hole and trying to have a consistent pattern in the sewing. I was really happy with the outcome though. I felt that this one couldn’t really be too playful because it was too serious a topic for me and my grandma also died from breast cancer so I wanted this to have a sort of toned down mood.

SECOND PERSON POV

Breasts in the point of view of a Plastic Surgeon is a Puzzle waiting to be rearranged.

This was based off the idea of fat transfer in the world of plastic surgery. The idea of taking other parts of the body to place it around the breasts are really shows how some women really treasure breasts as an asset and also the funny concept( maybe it’s just funny to me) that breasts are essentially fat but some women take the same fat from the other parts of the body just to put it into the breasts. I illustrated a mannequinn as the base body form to sort of give it a ‘plastic’ barbie doll look and how a plastic surgeon would see the human body as a toy that could be easily manipulated. So I blacked out a couple of puzzle pieces at the lower area of the body and having the puzzle pieces placed ontop of them to tilt outwards to show the idea of removing the puzzle pieces to place it elsewhere. For the boobs they were balloons(thought that it’d bring out the playfulness in this work and also having rubber balloons which are synthetic) that were painted skin colour and then had the congregtion of puzzle pieces placed on top of them to show how pieces that didn’t actually belong there is actually being ‘forced to fit in’ now and so I wanted it to look overcrowded around the balloons. Having the background as pink I felt complemented the mannequinn’s colour and gave off a very ditzy, plastic vibe.

Personal Thoughts :

THIS WAS SO FUN TO DO. I loved the colour scheme and everything for this it’s just so cute and so Mehgan Trainor’s All About That Bass. The visuals and the song was playing in the head the whole time. The balloons were really fun to play around with (okay sounds weird when I typed that out) and I loved the simplicity in this. Just thought this was a really cute piece.

Breasts in the point of view of a Conservative is Censorship

So for this I appropriated the greek sculpture to reference the idea of male dominance in the modern day patriarchal society. A sort of playful POV of how many modern day women whether in religion or culture are told by men to cover up. So the greek sculpture without arms actually puts the idea of society still living in the past and how nothing much really has changed since then and that men are still having a dominant position over women and that they are still controlling them. So I felt that the greek sculpture having no arms actually it quite well and that the hands of the men are actually controlling the woman’s entire being. So I layered a translucent film over to create a layer of ‘censorship’ and to place the puzzle pieces as part of the sculpture that could be manipulated. I also wanted to use many colours for the hands to contrast against the dullness of the greek sculpture to show the colourful male hands making the female sculpture dull. The puzzle pieces are then used here to represent censorship of the breasts. 

Personal Thoughts :

Had a hard time thinking of how to represent the body in this one and was just scrolling through Pinterest and finally when I typed ‘Woman no arms’ this came up and thought it fit the concept pretty well.

Breasts in the point of view of a Baby is Food

For this work it has a greater sense of nonsensicality because I represented the female body as meat in a slaughter house. For this work I represented the breasts as packaged meat similar to that in the supermarket. I photographed the puzzle pieces in a print-out of a styrofoam box and wrapped it in clingfilm and photoshopped a barcode on it. I just wanted to represent the breasts as outside of the body now and being represented as food for the baby. This work was one of the outrageous one and had the most problems with regarding concept because I did not want to represent it with just milk bottles and too literal and so I decided to take it a step further and made it more on the outrageous side.

Personal Thoughts :

I liked that this one mixed traditional medium and photography and somehow it worked to put contrast on the photographed puzzle pieces. This one I had so many ideas of how to represent the breasts as food and they were either too crude or too literal and I finally saw a photo of a slaughter house on google images and I was like THAT’S IT!

Consistency

For all of the works I wanted them to have a certain similarity in the body and the scale of it and to let the different portrayal of the breasts give different messages for each work. The pastel colours of the 5 works also give a sense of playfulness with contrasting bodies in the forefront and the background also serves to create a background in which the bodies could stand out of the borders and to really be ‘in your face’.

Reflections :

I loved being able to paint and manually create works but through this project I’ve actually learnt that it could actually be fun to merge the two! So for project 3 I would probably want to do a mix of both traditional and digital mediums and actually bring the two together after 2 Semesters of being in a dilemma going back and forth between traditional and digital mediums