VISual Art Seniors Group B

Big Floyd

Digital Painting transferred to tapestry

When I created this digital painting, I was laser focused on finishing it. When I first heard about the death of George Floyd, I was feeling anger and grief. But I also felt hopeless. I knew that police murders of people of color always got excused and slid under the rug. I know what it’s like to be the victim of racial injustice and I wasn’t going to let this be slid under the rug. For me, making this piece was my emotional outlet to be involved in the protests and marches happening in the city. The reference picture I found was different from the selfie of George Floyd that was circling around. It was a picture of George in a Houston hat in a car with his daughter, Gianna Floyd. This picture immediately touched me because I couldn’t stop thinking about how his daughter might feel. I knew she must feel confused, wonder, and hurt. She only knew that her daddy couldn’t breathe and that his name and picture were everywhere on TV. I know how much a father figure means in a little girl’s life, and I didn’t want another little girl to have to grow up without her father. I couldn’t bring him back to her, but I could create a piece that she’d remember. I decided to add angel wings and a halo around him because I thought it’d appear softer and be easier for Gianna to understand as she looked at my piece. He was a man- No, a father, son, brother, and uncle who died under the knee of a murderer in a blue uniform…begging for his mama. The wings and halo of an angel represent the FACT that Gianna knew her father to be a caring, innocent man who is no longer here to teach her not to go out too late at night, how to slow dance, or walk her down the aisle. Not a thug like these clowns mocking his death call him so disrespectfully. No matter what George did, he was a victim of POLICE BRUTALITY. He is now a symbol of justice, movement, and unity. This piece is now a blanket that Gianna can wrap around her at night and feel her daddy’s arms around her even when he’s gone. I couldn’t bring him back to her, but I could give her back her daddy’s embrace.

And that’s exactly what I was called to do.

One Extra Week

Acrylic on Canvas

This piece is about spending months alone in my room. I expected school to be out for about a few weeks, I even made plans with friends after we got back to school, but that changed as events unfolded. For entire weeks I would stay in my room doing schoolwork and occasionally going outside for a walk around the neighborhood. Not speaking directly to anyone except, occasionally my dad. At the time I had very little motivation to make art. This piece shows what my room looks like but I simplified the space so I could focus more on the colors rather than little details. This piece was one of the first things I did before I got back into the habit of drawing everyday. I spent a lot of my time sleeping and I was having very vivid and very surreal dreams. I wanted the painting to look soft and give it this specific color palette to give it a more dream-like appeal.

Stay-cation brag

Watercolor on paper

I created these pieces for the prompt: “Reflect on the events of spring 2020”. Rather than going with a sad or dark tone, I wanted to create something that was lighthearted, that many people could relate to. Each postcard is from an individual room in a house, some of the few places that most of us have been lately. Like most folks, I’ve been staying almost exclusively at home recently and have just been cycling through a handful of rooms in my house. It’s made me grateful to have somewhere to be and to also be sharing a similar experience with so many people.

To give these pieces the much lighter feeling I was intending, I used several layers of brightly colored watercolors on paper and painted each room name in a different font.

Rest In Power George Floyd

Digital

and focus on how and why you brought this work to life.) *

My intention for this piece was to show one of the lives taken during this pandemic. An event that took place 10 miles away from my school, a police officer named Derek Chauvin knelt on George Floyd's neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds and killed Floyd. After his death, protests against police brutality and racial oppression started globally. I want this piece to remind everyone he was one of us. We are all connected as a race, the human race. I hope someday we will be able to see past division and unify as one.

Summer Of Chaos

Mixed Media on Canvas

I created this piece as a reflection of the spring and early summer of this year, and how the lockdown and new relationships I formed in that time changed my life. On the paper is a writing, me reflecting on my own change. The pen cartridges are dried and barren, from all the information I’ve written. All of these words, all of this love, all of these thoughts... All in one space. The teeth and wire are objects I found while walking around on a seemingly untouched railroad track, a place I never thought about exploring until I met these new people, another layer of discovery I may never have found if we never went into lockdown

Bipedal Creature with Black Veins and Red Blood

Acrylic on Mirror

Throughout the summer I would sit infront of this mirror almost all the time, whether it was to do makeup, attend classes, or just stare into it. As my time spent at home in isolation progressed my mental health faltered, and I was put through the wringer emotionally and mentally. I began to paint this piece with myself as the subject and then slowly as more and more emotions built up inside me I began making my mirror self look hollow and lifeless, to reflect how I was starting to feel. This period was filled with deaths, plagues, and many other horrific events that affected everyone around me, this made me feel very trapped and I began to feel as if I was losing my mind. So I smashed up my mirror and felt a little bit of weight lift off my shoulders. I ended up becoming attached to this mirror and the paint is held, as a sort of symbolism for the time I had lost.

Around the Loop and Going Again

Digital Artpiece

For this art piece the prompt was much about the adversity of the current day and how one is to reach their personal goals. I for one found this to be an interesting theme and drawing much from my own imagination and view of recent events created the digital artwork before you. Really, my main goal in this is to represent the ever eternal and often almost cartoonish nature of existence and it’s many, many woes. Showing that in spite of much of the nonsensical chaos and loss, with the will to keep going and fulfill whatever higher goal drives us, we can never truly fail and may in someway achieve what is called success.

Fragments

Acrylic paint on mirror

The piece that I made is a reflection of some of the feelings that came along with the events of this spring. Everything is disjointed and the whole world just seems upside down when compared to before COVID. Thinking back on the number of things that have happened between this spring, summer, and now into the autumn, It’s pretty overwhelming. I wanted my project to show some of myself, hence the mirror. These last few months, I think I have looked at myself as a person a lot more closely than I ever have before. I have had to break down who I was and how I needed to improve myself in order to move forward as a better person and a person who is able to grow.

July 20'

Acrylic Paint and Marker on Paper

When creating this assignment, I first taped a large piece of paper to my dining room table and gave my younger sisters some paint. Due to the events of spring 2020, I have been able to spend a lot more time with my family. After my little sisters had finished creating their own masterpieces on the paper, I then painted over everything with multiple layers of both acrylic and watercolor paint to further develop the shapes my sisters had painted. To finish it off I used markers to add linework to the entire piece. This piece helped me to realize how important it is to spend time with family.

Half a year

Acrylic on canvas

The assignment given to me was to create a work of art that reflects on the events of spring 2020. From the assignment I created my point of view on the events that happened throughout the first half of the year. The Australian fires that killed millions of animals, Racial Justice protests, and the Coronavirus had an impact on the world.The face I chose to draw was referenced from multiple faces from the internet. The background represents fire yet there's a light in the middle of it. I painted this light around the head to show that African-American people are not to be in the darkness and that they shine bright, and that hopefully in the future the world will be brighter and more united. I decided to use acrylic paints on canvas because I wanted to create a bold and painterly look. I wanted to create this piece because even though 2020 has been chaotic, many people have persevered and became better than they were last year.

Some Time Alone

Acrylic on Canvas

For this assignment, we were asked to make a piece about how quarantine went down, how we felt about it, what we did and what happened to the state of the world. Or at least that's how I interpreted it. I was near offended when we received our prompt and so upset because the isolation, the loneliness, the depression and the hardships I faced during our spring semester of school were the last things I wanted to think about. Let alone make art about it. But I think that was the start of what I needed to think about before starting this piece. Why was I so pissed off about this assignment? This was and is a difficult time for me. I didn't want everyone to know that I was at one of my lowest points. That I am at one of my lowest points. I don't think that's very honest of me though. What I needed for this assignment was to be honest with my feelings and not feel I need to shun myself from the world just because I'm really just going through it. I needed to make the raw and uncomfortable moments of this time alone known. This is what we all need to do in order to heal and become better. This piece reflects the dark feelings that surrounded me the past several months. My defiance. My anger. My irritability. My sadness and depression and the numbness that comes with it. Even tho I felt so numb and helpless, I could feel the weight of the world on my shoulders. I look tired. I am tired. And I can only imagine you are as tired as I am. Maybe even more. I can feel all the collective feelings of the world right now. I'm sure you can feel me too. I hope y'all can relate or see yourself here. You're not alone, my loves.