Drawing on Objects

Drawing on Objects

Baggage, pen and ink and acrylic on paper bags, 10 in. x 12 in.

 

Inspiration

Unknown artist (from your blog)

Paper Bag Project, by Imin Yeh (1983)

http://blog.asianart.org/blog/index.php/2013/12/20/proximities-3-importexport/

James Michael Starr (from your blog)

Artist Statement

        For this project, I focused on consumerism, unfit work environments, and exploitation. My goal was to tell the story behind each product and how we, as consumers, do not think about the process of obtaining and making products. For the first bag, the controversy with Nike and the unfit work environments involved influenced this. The front displays a brandless shoe so that the viewer has no preconceived information about what might be on the back. On the opposite side is a the word "slavery" with the nike symbol taking the place of the "v." This minimalistically brings up the controversy of unfit labor laws and practices in the production of their shoes. The next bag brings up the exploitation of the diamond and how a lot of blood is shed to get them. The front of them bag shows a simple diamond ring in a box. The opposite side is dripping red blood that symbolizes the "blood diamond." The last bag is a image of a smart phone. No logo is seen but if you are familiar with what an iPhone looks like, then you have some context clues. On the opposite side is a message bubble of a text that reads "#help" and is painted green. The green color symbolizes money and when paired with the word "help" recalls the concept of poverty and its relation to technology. Americans buy and upgrade their iPhones so frequently that we do not even consider that regions of the world are left in the dark. There are a plethora of countries out in the world who do not have any cellphones or even internet, so that is what this final bag represents.