I've been doing a bit of research into aboriginal body painting as another form of investigating into identity, the paint acts as a representation into who they are. Whilst our society seems to judge one another's identity on our physical appearance, the aboriginals body painting is a representation of so much more. The decoration is a definition of their family role and place within the tribe, as I've found. The body is a temple to the culture, traditions and responsibilities held upon them, a complete contrast to how we consider our own bodies. I found this really interesting, as they are almost treating the body as a work of art. It saddens me that our society spends so much of its time criticising and judging peoples bodies in such a negative manner whilst cultures like these are proud of who they are regardless of what others may think.

I intend to some more research into this as perhaps including cultural differences in my artwork could be interesting. In order to do this I will need to look at the meaning of the different symbols adorned on the body and also the colour symbolism. It could be nice to incorporate flowers that are perhaps associated with the aboriginal tribes (if any.) The aboriginals are so much more appreciative of nature as they don't have the technologies that we have. This would explain however why we feel so differently about our bodies, as we are subjected to the social and public media that has influenced our self judgement whilst they are not.

The next step is perhaps to look more into the aboriginal culture but perhaps look into others such as American Indians or other African tribes and even consider looking more into our own.

So in researching into identity I've had a thought about relating the body to natural organisms such as plants and flowers. Our bodies inside and out are just like flowers in that we all grow and form differently and individually. But also in order to flourish we need to nurture and love and appreciate our bodies in the way we would look after a flower.

Also, in researching more into flowers I've discovered that each plant life has its own definition and meaning, mostly which are also considered characteristic qualities. So for example, a yellow rose represents jealousy or infedelity. The flowers could work well as a way to interject my concept of identity into each individual work. I want to use studies of the body, however by using the exterior it could encourage people to judge my artwork by the appearance of the body and I want to prevent that. I want to promote individuality to portray our identity as the beautiful aspect of our being and not our shape looks or weight. Therefore I've considered drawings of the inside of the body such as the muscles and skeletal structure. This would again symbolise that beauty lies much deeper than our looks. Therefore I've began experimenting with joining my concept of flowers and muscle work into one. Shown in the example image. By doing different studies with different combinations of flowers I am reflecting different traits in different people that make up the identity of who they are. Making them all different combinations will support that we are all individual and different, and this applies to both our personality and identity but to our bodies aswel. Our bodies are also unique and we should embrace them.

At the moment I feel very positive about this idea, it would help me to conceptually represent different identities in a way that might please people aesthetically. Flowers are considered or usually associated with beauty and I want to promote that we are all beautiful from within. I want to promote positive body image that may help people take even a small step in the right direction away from self loathe.

In experimenting with some drawings, such as the one above, it has helped me put my thoughts down on paper and allowed me to come to the conclusion that using body parts such as the hands and feet ( where the muscles are more intricate) are much more interesting to play with as I can wind and intertwine the flowers much more interestingly. The flowers aren't hidden in a subtle, exciting way when using parts of the body with larger more block-like muscles.

Aternativelly, instead of just placing flowers discreetly between muscles I could create patterns with the flowers themselves And then apply the pattern to cover different muscles. This is something I could address next in my experimentation and may actually work effectively for the more larger muscle groups.

new brief, new start...

So this is the moment we all wait for in degree art & design...the opportunity to do what we want to do! I've always been interested in the body obsession issue that plagues society and how it has resulted in a rise in eating disorders. Having partaken in projects in this theme before I've always approached it from the angle of someone experiencing an eating disorder. Therefore this time I want to promote the idea of inner beauty and how we should be defined by our personality rather than our shape or size. 

I feel this could be a much more interesting angle and help me to create artwork that isn't going to make people uncomfortable like previously but help address a matter that should be taken more seriously. We are human and it's natural to have flaws, we aren't designed to be perfect and trying to be that is causing people to be seriously I'll and unhappy. 

Having a chat with my mentor was really helpful, focusing on the key words of identity and individuality will help me demonstrate that we are all different and that should be embraced not resented. On the down side I'm now hit with the difficulty of addressing identity without causing any focus on looks or body image, a tough one but could also be interesting during the research process. 

The next step is to come to a conclusion about how to represent different identities with people....research time!