The Truth of the Human Rights

Artist Statement

The Truth Of The Human Rights

Nickolas

My piece is a collage of all of the human rights. I created my drawings with pencils, fine point markers, pastels, colored pencils, and sandpaper.

I chose to make a drawing for each of the human rights explained in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As I started researching, I was very interested in freedom of expression. I began looking into protests, specifically the protest in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017. As I worked on my research, I began to wonder how humanity got to this point, so I drew a piece for each of the human rights.

My pieces show my view or interpretation of the injustices, and what I think is the truth behind them. They all give voice about the human rights being denied, and what is really happening that ordinary people don't see in their daily lives. The message I'm trying to get across is that all people need to pay attention to the truth of what's happening around them in the world. Human rights should no longer be ignored.

My inspiration to make these pieces was complex. One reason is that I don't just want people to see my art, I want my art to speak to them. I also want to get the truth about these human rights issues to people. John F. Kennedy once said, “We must never forget art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth.” I love to create art, but I haven’t for a while. When this project came along I was excited to start to thinking in a more creative way. In doing so, I began to create image after image, and I couldn’t just stop at one piece. I thought of so many things to create, and that is when I realized the importance of all 30 of the rights written in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.