For Senior Studio I intend to explore young womanhood in terms of the inner-turmoil of quote-on-quote female rage and depression, creating artwork focused primarily on how it manifests and is portrayed in women through the use of my own experience as well as fictional and non-fictional sources. Examples of such sources that I will be drawing upon include the work of a number of women artists, musicians, writers, and literature - such as The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. I will also, on occasion, be responding to more satirical, dramatized pictures of this “female rage” as seen in movies such as Ti West’s film Pearl (2022). I do not intend to focus on more factual, political messages for this series, although it’s possible and likely that a more critical stance may be taken as the work progresses. I will be asking questions about the romanticization of women’s suffering, the strength of generational trauma in mother-daughter relationships, and how societal impressions of womanhood affect girls -particularly so with how in young adulthood this revelation of the frame of womanhood is realized as inescapable. I intend for the work I create to exude a burning passion of these suppressed emotions, and how the possibility of madness seems only natural the longer you linger in such spaces.
I will mostly be working with paint this semester, and likely not any oils. The idea of women’s art often being designated to craft is important to me, so I felt to use only the more “craft paint” type of the two paints was appropriate. Depending on what comes to the surface throughout the semester I will likely also branch into mixed media when appropriate. Method wise, I don’t intend to capture a hyper-realism or (primarily) aesthetic style of painting… I want the way that I paint to reflect not just the medium but the content of the art.
For a work plan exact dates don’t work the best with me. Instead I will set a standard to, in one sense or another (whether it be research or physical art making) put effort towards this series of work every day. I also intend to work in my sketchbook every day on top of this, even if it’s just a few quick notes. The days that I have completely off to spend plenty of time in the studio (besides studio class hours) are Thursdays and Saturdays or Sundays, and each of these days I will spend a considerable amount of time working on my project. I will not be here for reading week so will have to plan for that accordingly later on.
