Leo and I are exploring the theme further.....
Underneath the skin- a study in the Identity of Leo
Collins
Are we what we look like or what we feel like?
Does our outside reflect what we feel like?
I try to discover whether I am representing the external or internal
self.
We have already made a straight forward portrait in oil on
canvas.
Leo sat for me for several weeks last year and I discovered that
painting a person with cerebral palsy who moves a bit over a few hours,
is not very different to painting anyone else who also moves a bit over a
few hours...
OK here we have what Leo looks like.... but this gives no suggestion to what Leo is like inside or any of the changes he has made over the years...
OK, if I now tell you Leo is trans gender....
does the panting now look any different...
but if Leo has changed his outside, his inside has not altered....
except of course, he has moods, feelings, intellectual developments quite apart from his gender
Over the many sittings by talking I have discovered more of Leo’s
depths, finding him to be an analytical, sensitive, insightful young man,
capable of enormous self control and determination. He is very open-minded and
willing to try anything.
so how do
I get beyond the visual?
I want to draw the whole body, strong
expressive poses…anger, calm, yearning, reaching, and twisting. Close up of
skin, eyes, joints, in some experimental drawings I made just before Christmas I played with gouache and charcoal, rubbing and removing paper... perhaps I can use this technique....
Perhaps cut some of the pieces up, layer them, collage
them….
Perhaps on to make paintings, drips, almost obscuring, the
internal fighting to break out of the external.
Revisiting things that I have tried over the years... I want to take some photos too to work from..
some thoughts..
Revisiting things that I have tried over the years... I want to take some photos too to work from..
some thoughts..
layering of fabric, the form emerging and pushing through
Identity emerging through gender specific clothes eg
pushing through the folds of a ball gown, using perspex to layer images
on top of images...
I will experiment for a few weeks.... watch this space.
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