Continuing on from the lace legacy project, i have decided to further develop my ideas and focus on the history of lace bark material and slavery. During my trip at Newstead abbey i learned that lace was a symbol of wealth and status therefore, people that wore it were usually rich. However, in Jamaica enslaved African women had to produce their own version of lace material which was made from the inner layers of the lace bark tree. They would also adorn themselves in this material so that they themselves could look as beautiful as their European colonisers. It was a way that they could escape from the harsh treatments and pain that they would experience from their slave masters. Unfortunately, the lace bark material didn't last long due to the hard labour of the slaves, it would tear and rip which meant they didn't have an abundance of clothes to wear.
I started to do some more research on the history of lace bark and African slavery and i found some images of the Lagetta Lagetto plant which is from the lace bark tree that was used to make clothing. I took some inspiration from this image and decided to make a painting.
I sketched out and painted the reference photo in my sketchbook with acrylic paint and this is how it turned out. One of the aspects that I enjoy about this painting is the background colour, i changed it from the original reference photo as I believe that the orange colour made the green leaves stand out. Furthermore, I also really like the contrast of the white flower buds against the green leaves as it adds a sense of delicacy to the painting. On the other hand, some of the aspects that i would improve about this painting is the use of medium. Using acrylic paint made it kind of hard to blend out the shadows and highlights that were in the leaves, this is because acrylic paint dries out really fast. Therefore, if i was to do this painting again i would have opted for a paint that is thinner in texture like watercolour or oil paint. I would have also drawn the plant bigger so that it could fill up more of the background as there is a lot of empty space and i wanted the plant to be the main object of the painting.
After finishing my painting i decided to look up some images of the plantation slavery for my next piece of work. Here are the some of the images that I found
:
These images show both women and men during slavery on the plantation field. Initially, I wanted to use these images to make a series of acrylic paintings however, after our first print making lesson i quickly changed my mind. We were shown how to make prints using paper stencils, first we had to draw our chosen image or object. Then we would use a carving knife to cut out our image so that it would make a stencil. This a photo of what my stencil looked like:
After making my stencil I then placed the paper onto some card as this is what i wanted my print to be on. I used the squeegee to drag the black ink across my stencil which then resulted into a very nice screen print.
I was pretty impressed with how my screen print turned out, it reminded me of tribal African art which has a lot silhouette patterns and shapes. One of the aspects that i really enjoy about my screen print is the shapes that make up the body. i specifically cut out the paper in these shapes so that i could achieve an abstract look. Furthermore, i also think my work has strong connections to the cubism style. If i was to do this screen print again, i would have cut my paper stencil with a ruler so that the edges of the shapes would look neater. This is the image that inspired my
screen print:
The section of this image that i used for my screen print was the man cutting the tree. After i had done experimenting with screen printing, it inspired me to use this media for my next piece of art.
In preparation for my piece, i started to do some sketches of the images that i found in relation to slavery. The first sketch that I did was of the two women and the child towing the ground on the plantation field.
I decided to make my drawing more geometric visually so that it could look more abstract. After i had sketched out the photo, i then used a carving knife to cut out my paper stencil. This is how it turned out:
I wasn't very happy with rough my stencil looked, so i decided to scale up my drawing to a bigger size and recut the stencil using a ruler so that it could look neater. This is what the second attempt looked like:
My second attempt was much better and I am glad that I used a ruler because it made the the stencil look cleaner. I then went on to screen print my second stencil and this is how it turned out:
This is the final result of my screen print, I was very impressed with how it turned out and how clean the lines looked. The print gives off a tribal and African style which was the look i was going for since my focus is on the history of slavery and lacebark. To develop my work i definitely want to add some lace and African patterns in the background to emphasise the relationship between lace and slavery. Furthermore, i think it will give the viewer a clearer idea of the concepts behind my work.
My second screen print was based off this image:
i sketched out the first woman on the left into my sketchbook and decided to make a stencil out of it:
I decided to screen print the stencil onto a photocopied version of my lagetta lagetto painting, i thought it would be a nice contrast between the colourful leaves and the black figure. I also wanted to showcase the relationship between slavery and lacebark material. This is how my screen print turned out:
I wasn't able to cut out all the shapes within my stencil because the paper was about to rip, this made it difficult to cut the smaller and detailed shapes. Therefore, there ended up being some gaps in my finished screen print, so i had to go over it with black paint.
I decided that i wanted to develop this painting further and layer a net material over the painting. I did this by photocopying the material on to some acetone sheets and then photocopying the sheets on to my painting. In addition to this, I changed the colour of the material to red because red represents sacrifice and a lot of lives were sacrificed during the time of slavery. Another reason why i chose to layer the material over my painting is because of context behind the lace industry. The industry started in the UK in the Adams building and Africans were still being enslaved during this time period. However, for people living in the UK this would have been something that was not visible to them; almost like it was hidden. Therefore, layering the material over my painting emphasises the idea that slavery was unseen for a lot of people even though it was still happening.
I chose this material to layer over my painting because it resembles the tree bark lace from the lagetta lagetto tree. This was the closest look alike to the real thing i wasn't able to get hold of the real tree bark.
Artists that have underpinned my work
Within my project, there have been several artist that have influenced and underpinned my practice. Im very happy to have my work share strong connections with the artist Kara Walker, who is a black American contemporary artist. She works in print making, painting and film walker and her art focuses on themes related to sexuality, race and gender. Here are some examples of Kara walkers work:
As we can see, a lot of walker's work has concepts of African tribalism, slavery and violence. Although i didn't copy her work, i am amazed on the similarities between between my work and Walkers especially her silhouette pieces. Walker uses a lot of black colour in her art which i believe makes her work very bold and captivating. I also think it could represent mourning and pain because of the lives that were lost during slavery. The main reason that I was inspired by Kara's work was because of her concepts and themes, particularly the topic of slavery. It is something that African and Caribbean people cannot erase from their history because it is a part our story. Therefore, I decided to include the topic of slavery within my work to highlight an important and tragic moment in black history. As well as its interesting link with the lace industry.
Another artist who has heavily influenced my work is Yinka Shonibare who is a British Nigerian artist. His work explores cultural identity, colonialism. Shonibare works with sculpture, film, painting and photography. Here a few of Shonibares artwork:
One of the aspects that stand out about Shonibares work is the brightly coloured ankara fabric he uses for his sculptures. Ankara fabric is originally dutch but it was introduced to West and Central Africa by dutch merchants and now the patterns are commonly used in traditional African clothing. By using this fabric in his work, Shonibare wanted emphasise the relationship between Europe and Africa because of their political history.
I took some inspiration from his work and decided to use some African prints from my Mothers wardrobe. I took a picture of the clothing, printed the image out, traced the pattern onto my screen print and then painted the pattern red. Here is an example of my work and the fabric that i used:
As you can see i painted the patterns in a sequence so that i could keep the simplicity of the screen print. I decided to develop my screen print because i wanted to showcase African culture and clothing. I really like how the Ankara patterns on my screen print turned out on my screen print, my aim was to show the contrast between slavery clothing and contemporary Ankara prints. What i would have done better is added some lace patterns in the background.
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