Exhibition text
Title: I'm not oppressed
Medium: Acrylic on canvas Size:91.44x91.44cm December 10, 2015 This is a piece I created using acrylic on canvas. I was inspired by Roy Lichtenstein to create this piece because I liked the cartoony look his work has. I also used him as my inspiration because there is dialogue in most of his paintings. The two paintings of his that I took inspiration form were "Hopeless" and "M-Maybe". My intention with this painting is to let people know that Muslim women are not oppressed. I know that there are a lot of people who have the misconception of Muslim women being oppressed and forced to do things they don't want to do but that's not true.
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Process
Through out the process of creating this painting, I have encountered many difficulties. At first I had to change my skin tone color because it was too dark. I used brown and a little bit of white at first for my skin color because I thought that would work. Unfortunately I looked like a sun dried raisin when I finished applying on those colors. Then I remembered a video Ms. Milweski showed us last year in art history. I revisited the video to see how to blend colors together to make a skin color. The video was very helpful and I used the skills I learned to make my skin color on my painting. Also when I finished painting my painting, I realized that I didn't like the background. I felt that it was too dull and didn't represent pop art very well, so I changed the ugly purple color to a light more lavender color.
1) I stretched my canvas first in order to paint
2) After I finished stretching my canvas, I put gesso on it
3) then I chose my background color, which was a mixer of red and blue
4) I then traced the picture I chose to do with a projector
5) Finally I started to paint on my canvas
2) After I finished stretching my canvas, I put gesso on it
3) then I chose my background color, which was a mixer of red and blue
4) I then traced the picture I chose to do with a projector
5) Finally I started to paint on my canvas
Process of my painting |
Video on flesh tone
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My initial background color was a reddish purple. I felt that this color was too dull and not a good color for pop art so I changed it.
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This was the photo I used to paint my self portrait. I changed my scarf color because I liked the burgundy color I used better.
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This was my planning sketch. I only have one because I liked the first sketch that I did. There is nothing in the thought bubble because at the time I didn't know what to put there.
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Artistic Inspiration
Mohamed, Sehba. "A Handy Guide to Pop Master Roy Lichtenstein."Flavorpill. Flavorpill Media, 2 Feb. 2015. Web. 10 Dec. 2015. <http://www.wikiart.org/en/roy-lichtenstein/hopeless-1963>.
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"M-Maybe, 1965 by Roy Lichtenstein." Roy Lichtenstein. 2010. Web. 10 Dec. 2015. <http://www.roylichtenstein.com/m-maybe.jsp>.
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Meaning of my Portrait
I am a proud Muslim-American girl, and I am tired. I am tired of being told that I am oppressed. That I have no voice. That I need to be liberated. I am tired, and I am speaking out for the rights of me and other fellow Muslim sisters to be able to dress and be how they wish to be. If you think that wearing short skirts and showing your hair makes you confident and independent then me covering up and wearing my hijab makes me confident and independent as well. People often fail to distinguish between culture and religion, two things that are completely different. In fact, Islam condemns oppression of any kind whether it is towards a woman or in general. So when people say " well how come in Saudi Arabia women can't drive" well thats Saudi Arabia's cultural believes, it has nothing to do with Islam. In my country women were allowed to do whatever they pleased and yes 99.9% of Somalians are muslims. I hate that people see the culture of one nation and say that it must be their religion. If it was the religion then all culture who are muslim's such as Malaysians, Somalians and Indonesian all act the same and don't allow women to do anything without mens permission. Well thats a false statement because In fact muslim countries have the highest amount of women leaders, eight total muslim countries with women leader. America the land of the free still hasn't elected a female president but yet muslim women are the ones that are oppressed. So I created this painting to let people know that I'm not oppressed. I chose to dress the way that I have and yes my parents did influence me when I was younger but as I grew older and I started to learn more about Islam and its teachings I decided for myself that I will keep dressing that way. So that's why I have an angry face and in my thought bubble it says "I'm not oppressed" because that's what I think when someone asks " your being forced to wear that thing on your head right?".
Reflection
Overall this project was interesting and hard to do. I had a hard time coming up with an idea and using the acrylic paint in order to paint. I'm personally not a huge fan of my piece but I think it's what I imagined I would do. I'm not a skilled painter or even average so when I heard we were going to paint I kind off freaked out. I was scared that I was going to make an ugly portrait but thank goodness that didn't happen. Of course I encountered many difficulties while painting it. First I didn't like my skin color, it was too dark and grey and I feel like it still is. But its much better than my first color, it looked orange and grey and it was just a disaster. Thankfully I fixed that mess, I then realized that I didn't like the background color I had initially chosen. So then I changed that color and I finally finished the painting. In conclusion this project thought me a lot of things such as how to stretch a canvas and also how to use acrylic paint properly, so I'm happy that we got to do it.