Touch Assignment

Flower of Life
8x10
Acrylic Paint on Canvas

"As a fetus grows in the womb, surrounded by amniotic fluid, it feels liquid warmth, the heartbeat, the inner surf of the mother, and floats in a wonderful hammock that rocks gently as she walks...Up to your shoulder inside a cow, you feel the hot heavy squeeze of her, but I'll never forget my startled delight the first time I withdrew my hand slowly and felt the cow's muscles contract and release one after another, like a row of people shaking hands with me in a receiving line. I wonder if this is how it feels to be born."
- Diane Ackerman, "A Natural History of the Senses" Pages 78-81

Statement: I thought about what it feels like to be in a moment of pure love and creation to make this painting. It's a flower of life, blooming a soul into existence. This is the response to the question of what it feels like to be born. We were all born into this world and we will all pass eventually. According to Indigenous knowledge, that energy will be recycled into the earth to create new life. This painting is supposed to capture that feeling, that feeling of birth, full of warmth, pressure, and emotion. Being new to this world of so many infinite possibilities, as a living being.

 

Life Goes On

8x10

Acrylic Paint on Canvas

"Ultimately, tattoos make unique the surface of one's self, embody one's secret dreams, adorn with magic emblems the Altamira of the flesh. It is also a form of self-destruction...Those with tattooed faces, hands, and heads have chosen, in a way, to seal themselves off from normal society forever..."Beauty created through brutal means," "power bestowed at the price of submission," "the glorification of the flesh as a means to spirituality.""
- Diane Ackerman, "A Natural History of the Senses" Page 100

Statement: This painting represents that "magic," the spiritual significance of tattoos. There are people who see tattoos as mutilating our bodies, but they are a tribute to the beauty of our bodies, it is a form of adornment. A commitment to the beauty of art, of rebellion against the norm, and dedication to our ideas. This painting represents the contrast of the beauty of the tattooed art to our skin by flipping the blackness of the tattoo to be the background. This specific tattoo symbol represents suicide awareness. The semi-colon shows how life goes on after a suicide attempt, in the way a sentence goes on with a semi-colon. People who mark this tattoo on their skin are survivors, and this is one of many tattoo symbols that is so significant.