Artist Statement

Every Person in the World 

Tyrone Anderson

My piece comprises a tan hand and silver bars with a black border. I used watercolors for the bars and the border and for the hand. I traced my hand to make it look more realistic. I used markers that look like watercolors but work very nicely.

My idea for my piece was to raise awareness for modern-day slavery; the tan hand is supposed to represent every person in the world because no one should ever have to live as a slave. That's why I decided to name it Every Person in the World. A huge inspiration for my piece was the book Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson. It's about a slave girl's life, and it takes place throughout the course of a year from 1776-1777. The book tells about slavery in the past during the Revolutionary War, but slavery still exists worldwide today. According to the International Labour Organization, there are around 50 million slaves worldwide; this includes 22 million people in forced marriage and 28 million in forced labor.

For my art piece, I tried to recreate the cover of the book Chains but with my own twist on it. I hope that my piece shows people that slavery isn't something of the past. People are still enslaved; we should be highly concerned about this today. I hope bringing awareness to this issue helps somewhat. My heart truly aches for all of the 100 million people forced to do something they don't want to.