At my formative assessment before the Easter holidays, I was advised to try incorporate beauty products into my work, and so spent some time at home over Easter drafting more ideas for papercuts.
This didn’t come without its challenges however. I was back at my parents, there was a lot of distractions around the house with so many people, and I pretty much had no personal space since I had to kip in the front room on the sofa…
Eventually I was able to knuckle down and get into cutting late at night. And the main products I chose to use were foundation, contact lenses, and a range of hair products. Produced about 2-3 variations for each product type.
Again I had to think of a way to convey messages that some products suggest to consumers or how consumers read the message-without being over detailed or being too short. In the end I came up with 3 short but succient messages
1. “Light is Right”
From pictures I see posted on my social media feeds, to discussions on radio stations. I’ve been seeing and hearing more of some women doing things to their skin pigment in order to make them appear lighter via the application of make up, or even resort to bleaching. I chose to put this message in foundation containers. I think the thing I had an initial problem of resolving was the font style. I felt that considering foundation is in a liquid state, the font should match it but without it looking too soft.
2. “Bright is Right”.
I remember watching a season of America’s Next Top Model. One of the girls who made it into the top 13 was a beautiful looking Indian girl, and initially wore blue contact lenses upon her meeting with Tyra and the other judges. She stated that Indian people like girls/women with lighter eyes and skin. Upon more research and brainstorming I decided to look at black british female models and of course went for Naomi Campbell. Looking at many of her high fashion photoshoots and magazine coversI noticed that her eye colour was quite light in most of them, but footage I’d seen of her outside of the modelling world showed her to have dark brown eyes. She’s known to wear contacts. I started to wonder why? Was it a personal thing? Or again was it the idea of being appropriated to fit a notion of beauty to satisfy society?
3. “Full Locks Rock”
Hair product adverts. Display women with full bodied, lengthly and almost impossibly glossy hair, waving it, flicking it. And these products give you the false promise of achieving such a look. We do a lot of things to our hair, put a lot of chemicals in it without realising that it can do more harm than good. Straightening, hot curling, bleaching/dying, chemically straightening or perming. I remember sometime last year I randomly came across a documentary titled “Good Hair” in which Chris Rock was exploring the relationship African/American Women have with their hair. The views some women (and even some men) shocked me a bit, amongst other things. A school girl said she doesn’t think someone should have an afro if going for a job interview. Girls as young as 2 were getting their hair permed. Women pay $1000’s for a ‘good weave”
I’m quite pleased with the way these have turned out and have got a good range to pick from that I want to present at the degree show. It’s better to have too much of one thing than nothing at all…and I still can’t break out of this habit of having too much.
MicasArtWorld 