Cover Up

Artist Statement

Cover Up

Logan

I created this art piece with a canvas and acrylic paint. My painting is of a large heart with half a painted rainbow and half red to show the true colors and what is needed to get what they want. The paintbrush is painting over the rainbow to hide what the heart really is. I used these materials because the paint layers nicely and won’t completely cover the true colors of the heart. This shows that people can only try to hide things, but it won't work 100% of the time. The picture is used to represent how some people try to hide who they are by pretending to be someone they are not just to have the same privileges as other people.

I chose to focus on the right to work without any discrimination. I chose to focus on this because it's wrong that people might not be able to get a job due to race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc. The right as written in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.” This includes everyone. But as of today, 21 of the US states still won't hire, promote, give raises to or can fire without any reason, people in the LGBT community. This is wrong because they are purposely violating this human right. Between 11-28% of workers are losing promotions solely based on the fact that they are LGB, and 27% because they are transgender. Out of 700 working people being interviewed in America only 2% were LGBT. Seeing the percentage of people not getting equal treatment due to who they love is outrageous.

The point I'm trying to make with this art piece is that in today's society it is more widely accepted to be in the LGBT community, and yet there is still discrimination in the workplace that causes people to not be their authentic selves. Even though we have progressed in acceptance there is still a long way to go. The heart represents love as most would guess and the color is what is important. How I see it is the people hiring care more about who a person loves rather than if their heart works the same as theirs. That is portrayed by the gay pride flag as the heart being painted over with the color red which represents a “normal” heart. When researching this it made me mad at the fact that we as people are still using love as an excuse to feel superior toward someone.