Douglysium

Once again, I continued exploring the theme of “change” with this series of artworks. With this peace I sought to explore how change occurs through the violence of war and oppression / subjugation of people. While not as clear as I would have liked, the idea is that the bomb is like a seed and from it erupts and explosion that in turn has a building with a skull’s reflection emerging from it. The seed itself grows from the blood and pain of the people trapped near it. The explosion is actually designed after a cotton plant because I originally wanted the piece to specifically be about the U.S. and its ties to the exploitation of various minorities to build the foundation for the modern U.S. However, The U.S. is not the only country founded on exploitation or even slavery and I wanted to get the viewer to think about their own nation’s history or the history of the world. Rather than just right this off as an “American problem.” Even the U.S. got the systems of slavery from the European nations that sought to colonized it. So the U.S. itself did not start this process. The building itself is also supposed to be like a coffin. A warning for what could happen if we do not confront the less savory parts of history. Something a lot of countries and people try to reject or hide.

1: An image of a building with a skeleton from the torso up with cross arms in the reflection of its windows, or inside the building looking out through the windows depending on the perspective, emerging from an explosion that also mimics a cotton plant. The explosion itself has a stem leading to a bomb that is split open like a seed embedded in some sort of filled with bodies of human silhouettes that is spilling blood. The image is roughly colored with ink, while black ink forms lines. The building is blue, the explosion red, yellow and orange, while the bomb, and area surrounding it, is red. The blood leaking out of the area containing the bomb is also red.

#douglysiumart #traditionalart #ink