When decorating the raw chicken, I decided primarily to use brightly coloured jewels as I thought these would produce a garish and tacky-looking effect and evoke ideas of false luxury and bright, distasteful disguises like the wrappers on sweets etc. I created a pattern of jewels on the back of the chicken first, starting in the middle with a flower shape as the centre-piece. I picked the flower shape because it reminded me of chintzy fabrics and tacky curtain designs-patterns designed to make something cheap look attractive,most of the time unsuccessfully.
I also used feathers in a deep magenta colour which reminded me of fancy dress costumes and feather boas, bringing the idea of disguise to the forefront. I felt that placing the feathers symmetrically on either side of the chicken made it look like it was dressed in some gaudy and extravagant ensemble, and thought they contrasted well with the plucked skin of the chicken itself. The magenta colour of the feathers clashed with the pale pink of the skin.
Finally I embroidered directly onto the back of the chicken. I thought this drew a contrast, between the traditional purpose of embroidery-to beautify an object,and the repulsiveness of the fact that this object was a raw, dead animal. I would have liked to include further embroidery, but it proved difficult to achieve good result when embroidering directly onto the chicken's skin,which was slippery and wet and moved out of place easily.
I thought it was fitting for my themes that I should have to overcome my repulsions about touching the raw meat,in order to decorate it.
I decided to present the chicken itself as the finished piece rather than present photographs as I thought that seeing the chicken in the flesh would produce a more disgusted and shocked reaction. I left the chicken in part of its actual packaging because I thought this would help get my ideas about food packaging across.
No comments:
Post a Comment