Sustained Investigation #5

Sustained Investigation #5: "We Are Pure"

Acrylic on Canvas

12" x 12"

My painting is less of a cultural portrait and more of a "banning of culture" portrait. Throughout history, cultures have tried to screen out or purify their culture in some way or another. With recent immigration bans and discrimination in our country towards specific races/cultures/religions I was inspired to create this piece. I wanted to make a dark piece to make it difficult to see unless you are looking at it from a certain perspective, representing that some of the troubling issues going on can only be brought to light if you are looking for it from a certain perspective. Traditionally, white represents purity, so I attempted to make a white, "purity fence" preventing the portrait of the syrian woman from being in the foreground of the painting, rather she is an indistinguishable background. I chose to focus on this subject/culture because I had the experience of having a Syrian refugee come and live at my old boarding school where she told us about her fears of her perception in the US.

I completed this piece using Acrylics on a Canvas.

I decided to try using Acrylics again, rather inspired by the section I tried to black out on my last piece- seeing how some parts were still visible. I began by making an outline of the woman, then highlighting certain areas in dark blue and painting the shadows in black. I then added white fence like structure in the foreground. To improve upon this piece I would try to make the foreground more evidently a white fence as it is rather difficult to tell what it is.