Douglysium

Some pieces I did for a painting and watercolor class last fall semester. We were supposed to choose artists to take inspiration from and I choose @trenton_doyle_hancock (on instagram) and @jooyoungchoiwow (on instagram). The thing I tried to capture most is how they often use vibrant colors and whimsical ways of representing things, including serious topics. They also pour a lot of time into their own personal worlds and stories so I decided to try to create a similar feel by creating something akin to one of their recurring characters. The “character” I made was the “Red Planet” meant to symbolize false hope. Part of the theme I’m going for is the Red Planet is a planet of blood. Only death awaits.

While not an artist, Martin Luther King Jr’s speech “Major Drum Instinct” also gave me a lot of inspiration and direction for what I want my piece to convey. MLK says “And all you are living on is the satisfaction of your skin being white, and the drum major instinct of thinking that you are somebody big because you are white. And you’re so poor you can’t send your children to school. You ought to be out here marching with every one of us every time we have a march. Now that’s a fact. That the poor white has been put into this position, through blindness and prejudice (Make it plain!) He is forced to support his oppressors. And the only thing he has going for him is the false feeling that he’s superior because his skin is white— and can’t hardly eat and make his ends meet week in and week out. (Amen!)” One of the themes I want to make sure I capture in my paintings is both a theme of scale but also interconnectedness. Specifically, how social issues and problems don’t exist in isolation. If we wish to make the world a better place we cannot just only tackle issues separately or act like they only affect one specific minority group, but have as holistic a view as we can manage. Additionally, just because we cannot immediately see how an issue affects us does not mean the effects aren’t there. For example, sometimes infrastructure was specifically designed poorly in order to hurt minorities only for it to come around and affect everyone and make every person’s life more difficult no matter their social classification.

#douglysiumart #acrylic #painting

1: A painting depicting a bunch of people uncomfortably squashed into a bottle filled with green vapors. At the bottom of the bottle is a town flooding with blood. Below the bottle is the Earth being torn in half as all of its contents are being sucked out and forcefully shoved into the increasingly cramped bottle.

2: A spaceship flying through space from a dying Earth towards the maws of a malicious looking planet with an orange skull-like face full of yellow teeth. The sclera of its eyes alternate between waves of yellow and pink while blood spills out of its mouth and other openings in its body. The Earth is half shoved into a bottle.