ABOUT “HOLLOW PEDESTALS”

In the style of Wangechi Mutu, an incredibly talented collage and sculpture artist whom I wrote a blog post about, this piece works to convey a political message through Papier Collé on canvas. While creating this piece in April of 2017, I put a lot of effort into adding layers of symbolism and satire drawn from personal life experiences, much like Mutu does in each of her collages. The “pedestal” on which my figure sits is meant to satirize the societal notion that women should be put on esteemed pedestals and treated chivalrously or “like ladies.” This apparent societal idolization of women is revealed to be “hollow” or meaningless when viewed in contrast to the shocking headlines which frame the canvas. In addition, I created the pedestal out of items associated with feminine beauty– making reference to the expectation that women must continuously engage in consumerist behavior in order to be appropriately feminine and attractive for the male gaze. This notion too, is revealed to be “hollow” when contrasted with the societal disrespect, inequality, and violence women are forced to endure while navigating the world (also evidenced by the headlines).

Allison Meier, an online art critic, said of Mutu’s female collage subjects, “There’s something both powerful and broken in all of these women who she creates from the fragments, picking them up from pieces into something fiercely reborn, but which can’t shake the harm of history that follows them.” Using this quote as inspiration, I created a figure that conveys both brokenness and strength. The figure is vulnerably naked, and she is discordantly and painfully composed of bits and pieces — a brokenness which is tied to the confusion of headlines surrounding her. And yet, despite her suffering, she is powerful and triumphant. She has turned this pedestal composed of trinkets of obligatory femininity into a flowered throne where she is able to rest with confidence and comfort.

Stylistically, my piece especially utilizes color, which I mainly used as a tool for creating movement and contrast. Colorful cut-outs are clustered in the center of a black-and-white backdrop to add variety and interest to what would otherwise be a boring piece (contrast). In order to ensure the viewer doesn’t get their eyes stuck on the colorful pile of items the figure rests on, I added brightly colored flowers leading up the chair to lead the viewer’s gaze to the most important part of the piece, the figure herself. To add more emphasis on her face, I added a brightly colored flower to her hair as well as a series of flying peaches which drift around her head (a tribute to Mutu’s common practice of adding surreal, natural flying objects to her pieces). These peaches, in addition to drawing the eyes away from the pile to the figure’s face, stretch across the space to help shift the viewer’s gaze to the headlines framing her, crucial reading for understanding the piece’s meaning.

This piece also utilizes texture, specifically actual texture in the form of images. While the images create a definite sense of texture, I took care to ensure that I didn’t add too much, keeping in mind the usefulness of economy and negative space in a composition. One part of the piece in which I felt it was important to take repetition to an extreme, however, was with the integration of the onslaught of headlines framing the figure. In fact, there is so much repetition of these titles that one can feel overwhelmed trying to register them all, an emotion which I hoped would draw attention to the overwhelming and confusing experience of being a woman in a world where these headlines are commonplace.

To read more about Wangechi Mutu and to see some of her works, check out the blog post I wrote about here!