Anonymous statements that develop our hidden truths.
‘This piece develops artistic influence from the ‘I’m Tired’ project. Developing stereotypes and understanding everyday micro-aggressions and assumptions that people discriminate upon us. A piece that reveals how people judge too quickly and this forces us to become fed up. It has been an interactive, personal set of work that has allowed me to ask questions most wouldn’t and get answers I wouldn’t think they would want to discuss. Keeping it anonymous gives the individual that safety that they can speak freely without having any backlash. The whole idea behind this piece it creates a free space where individuals can discuss with me what they are most tired of and allow them to become apparent within the world.’
- Michaela Gamble (2019)
Developing the idea of ‘pink’ extended from last years project of ‘boundaries’. I wanted to create some form of boundary within my work, so I chose the colour pink as a subject matter for it has had an impact throughout my life. Discussing ideas that when I was of toddler age I loved all things pink, then influence of living around boys gave me a new sense to be more tomboy. However, influence within secondary school gave a new love of pink once again and I wanted to look at the impact of colour association with gender. I found artist JeongMee Yoon who created a project based around colour as a development, her ideas influenced mine and allowed me to look at the idea of ‘pink for girls and blue for boys’ further. After reading a BBC article about dividing products by gender it gave me a new branch to follow up on, this was stereotypes. This allowed me to find artists like Cindy Sherman, Gillian Wearing, Peter DeVito and the ‘I’m Tired’ project. This is where I really took my project to a different level. The idea of the ‘I’m Tired’ project is displaying feelings upon anonymous models of what they are most tired of. Looking at what the project had collected there was statements from political views to mental health to everyday statements. I enjoyed experimenting with my own chosen people as it became rather personal, however I enjoy that the final image is anonymous, so the viewer cannot see the face.
Wanting to create an impact on the viewer I discussed many times what to have presented for the exhibition. One idea was having the images presented with a recording of me asking the questions to the model and them responding, however I didn’t feel this would keep the idea of It being anonymous. Another idea was to create a film displaying the process accompanied by the images again it wouldn’t be kept as anonymous. What I settled for in the end was to have my negative ‘I’m Tired’ and positive ‘I Appreciate’ images clustered together to create an exploration of the artists project, a response. This would create an impact of what each model was saying and maybe a connection between the viewer and image, a sensation that they too feel that way. Essentially stereotyping has been flipped on its head with this artists work, each person is portraying what they are tired of and these inner thoughts are being expressed within art, rather than other people telling you what you are supposed to feel.
