Inclusion Design

This artwork was made to be submitted to the Maine Inclusion Project, and was made to focus on representing inclusion of mentally or physically disabled people. I decided to manifest the prompt by putting in a woman in a wheelchair in the style of Byzantine artwork with the big golden halo around the subject’s head. This is because in the time period this took place, the people in the paintings were all abled people. They were also often, as my super smart art teacher pointed out, royalty (or biblical figures). I made it so the woman in the painting was in a wheelchair, but also that her wheelchair could sort of be interpreted as a throne. I used acrylic paint to make my piece.

The main element of my work is color. I’m very accustomed to using a lot of lines in my mark-making, and acrylic always gives me an opportunity to work past that boundary. I used green, reddish-purple, and yellow for the woman. I made her colors feel regal and tried to make her facial expression very composed. For the background I used various shades of blue. And of course I used gold and yellow paint to make the halo around her head.

This is a strong piece. The colors come together well, it displays a full range of value, and it uses all of the space on the canvas. If I were to redo the project I would make the wheels of the wheelchair and the blue around it have more layers, as you can see through to the canvas. I would also make her hands bigger, I’m very irked by how small they are compared to her head.