I am very excited to have started working on an alternative direction of my project. My new piece is a portrait of Pearl Twink, a girl I met in Lekki, Lagos, Nigeria.
The concept for this piece is to instigate a dialogue between my reflections on her definitively uncertain life, and interweave them with her responses to my provocative statements. The plan is to use a range of processes, including painting and screen printing. This will be possibly extended and developed through video and Gifs. The narrative element continues to be very important. It reinforces the ambiguity of the message I am trying to communicate and questions it’s place in the broader contexts.
The previously overused blasting process will be now replaced by a machine intervention. I will experiment with using a variety of washing powders, temperatures and lengths of cycles to remove the under image and the overprinting layers of text.
All my new work will be created on unprimed and unstreatched canvases. Currently, I am using Calico and synthetics. However, during my forthcoming trip to Burma, I intend to collect a variety of materials and appropriate, locally produced fabrics, to increase the element of authenticity of my project.
I have already started to develop an under image. It is still a recognisable portrait of Pearl Twink. This part of the process is associated with deep reflections. My thoughts are jotted down all over the piece as rough notes and the most important content is just below the image.
Subsequently, I have refined this text and its content. I wanted for my message to be more provocative as well as form a discussion between her ideas and my judgements.
A copy of the refined text is below. I have also experimented with different ways of making the text less readable and partly invisible.
Subsequently, I was faced with a dilemma: should I use a handwritten text on top of the under image or develop a typographic silk screen?
The screen idea has worked very well and the inking process was very fulfilling. I felt that this process has began to work as I had intended.
Additionally, the overprinting has started to take shape and created fine details and a sense of layering.
The message containing Pearl Twink’s response is also ready to be transferred onto a silk screen. As soon as this is done, I will initiate the overprinting process, which will be subsequently washed off by experimenting with machine intervention.
This is intended to reinforce the element of uncertainty and waiting in anticipation; worries and anxieties of what will happen during the ‘washing’ cycle. There is no stopping it whilst the process is started. All I can do is to wait to see the result and assess the accidental value of my risky approach. The potential of loosing it all is real!
As an alternative idea, I am also considering to develop an animation, or perhaps, a video piece, and include the flashing and alternating of individual stages of the overprinting process and the messages.
I could not resist to record the last attempt of blasting the ink off to reveal the content of the screen and its message.
I feel very nostalgic!
HYPNOTIC REPETITION 