Perception Series by Loleithaart

Nya/Nia translated means purpose.

Nia in the midst of her journey. This digital drawing captures the teenager looking ahead but being free to choose. #future, #identity, #faith

Speaking life over the Nia/youth, have a purpose, have choices, don’t let perceptions stop you!

This image I created from Essence Magazine advertisements, taglines for products used as affirmations, spelling out her name. Encouraging her to believe in herself and achieve her hopes and dreams. #artprocesses, #identity, #perception

Poet And Author Maya Angelou wrote a poem titled ‘And still I rise’, 1978

Perception Series:

Perception is communicated as a result of Identity, attention and understanding, the interpretation of sensors, memory, and expectation.  #Loleithaart

Perception 1

#Loleithaart #perceptionseries

…identity and perception a continuation.

So I continue with drawing heads with no faces. These images are to represent a woman/women. With a particular focus on hair as it is the first thing a woman wants you to notice, basically a woman’s style is based on that; her clothing, her walk and confidence. I feel a woman’s lack of confidence can form, simply because women are judged by each other and society; every which way. Find me a woman with ‘bad’ hair or who may not know her style; that is confident. (I’m just saying).

‘perception 1’ 54×41 2015, white pen on black paper. This image was drawn of myself; I was looking at black women on the internet. My screen went black (to sleep) as I was making notes, I looked up and there I was on the screen.

Perception 3, Digital braided image, 29×21

This digital illustration of my daughters’ plaits, ‘braided’ and the subsequent drawings on hair. I drew with a white pen on black paper I am currently working in negative monochrome (image above Perception 1), Perception series (white on black) and looking at Afro hair specifically, and how hair is an adornment for all women. Women for centuries have been styling and grooming themselves, to fit in and conform, to societies expectations. The need to present oneself has been very influential in the lives of all women and at times has caused mental health issues and physical illnesses., due to the pressures.

‘Afro hair realities
There is versatility with Afro hair and styling. Perms permit looser curls and relaxers to straighten the hairs natural coil. These salon treatments are to help with the management of Afro hair but are not essential.
A Black girl is raised with braids, plaits, cornrows, twists, and the use of hair products, such as coconut oil grease, which helps soften the hair because the climate can be very drying to the Afro hair and the cornrows, etc. together with the product are essential for protective styling. Keeping the hair soft, just like when lotioning the skin,  for prevention against the environment and its elements. Around the world, there are places with hard water and soft water. These environment elements work with or against the hair type.

Madam CJ Walker (1867- 1919). Walker, an African-American and a Civil Rights Activist, Philanthropist and Entrepreneur. She was Afro hair’s original hair product creator and supplier from 1905. Madam Walker became a self-made Millionaire and self-promoted her products, by giving lectures and teaching on the use of the products and Afro hair care.

October/November 2015… To begin my dissertation, I researched Augusta to express her depiction of race and identity.

image: ‘Realization, 1938’. Scale, Unknown, clay/plaster

Empowerment.

The Harlem Renaissance 1918-1937 promoted civil rights for the African-American cultural identity, it was a movement that represented authors, artists, musicians, photographers, poets, and scholars. Names include Zora Neale Hurston, Countee Cullen, Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Du Bois, Sterling ALLEN Brown, Claude McKay, Augusta Savage, Wallace Thurman and James Weldon Johnson, to name but a few. This uplifting the culture, giving understanding through the arts’ the Black ethnic group was significant because the culture needed empowering due to the centuries of oppression.

The Black Power Movement in the 1960s promoted the reclaiming of natural Afro hair to be a powerful adornment to be proud of, instead of the use of hair processes and chemicals which change the natural coil of the Afro hair type, to fit in. Therefore, accepting their heritage and natural style as well as having an understanding of self. Reclaiming positive self-images and representation. This perception and acceptance are essential because society and media have not always included nor represented them or their characteristics appropriately.

Having groups like the Harlem Renaissance, 1918 -1937, and The Black power movement gave Black culture a president to build and yield from oppression. Like having a mum and dad encouraging you, having faith in you and your abilities. An ideal family experience.

Augusta Savage: 1895 to 1965 sculpturess

Her work depicted race and identity, in this particular piece, ‘Realisation’ 1938, Savage portrayed the sign of the times, her time, her cultural lens. In 1938, American was suffering during the ‘Great Depression’, World War II was brewing, and Hitler was ethnically cleansing.

The connection I made with Augusta Savage’s, artwork ‘Lift every voice’ brought me back to a sculpture, I created a self-portrait, ‘finding my voice’, 2012, 5ft.8, (including box,) plaster. Images of my sculpture inserted below.  Also, Savage’s work was demolished after it was exhibited, (as was my sculpture, inserted below). Yes. Oh my goodness! Thank God for technology/ photography – that enabled us to have images that captured the artwork. Savage’s art being demolished to me was a great disappointment, heartbreaking in fact, and a real loss to the art world, she was a true artisan. Imagine, the dedication, and amount of time and effort; putting your wholeself into making and achieving, for it then to be discarded…

Future thoughts…  to research and create more sculpture.

‘finding my voice’ 2011/12.- 5ft8

can you believe this was thrown out…

#loleithaart ‘hair done’  pastel on paper. 58×42

My reflections on preparing hair, washing, conditioning and blowing drying, straightening and a quick trim until we get the perfection we desire. I drew this as I was waiting for the potatoes to finish browning in the oven. #homelife, #preparation.

With the Degree show humming in my mind, I reflect on preparing. What do I want to achieve? I think about how much time I have to create work, what with the juggling of work, Uni, and home… Time to make more artwork! It is a much needed… therapeutic time, thank God for creativity! Life eh!

I was reading earlier in the Art Illusion pg 291 and came across this statement…

Perception of Visual Art,

“I believe it is only by considering these physiological aspects of image making and image reading that we may come closer to an understanding of the central problem of the history of art, that is why representation should have a history”, (Gombrich, 1990).

I think along the lines of, dictatorship, (being pushed into what is to be accepted), like with high fashion, someone is deciding what’s in and what’s out. Sitting in their office making decisions.  But what if we don’t follow? Just a thought, It is, after all, those artists’ who decided not to follow that actually stood out and whose name we frequently speak. For example, Pablo Picasso, Georges Seurat,  Yves Klien, Mark Rothko, Yinka Shonibare, Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, Lucian Freud, Damien Hirst, and Chris Ofili, to name but a few… The point I am making is they/we are all striving to make sense or just let our creativeness flow… Flowing from what we see and live with from day to day. We are all unique and express it through art, music, and some through writing. It’s all artistic expression.