Artist Statement
Art to Wear- Medieval Suit of Armor
The
link between masculinity and femininity is a recurring theme in the majority of
my artwork from sculptures, photography, to paintings that I have produced in
the last couple of years. This theme challenges me to play with the frills and
delicateness of the woman and the hard, edgy, and sharp aspects of a man’s
wardrobe. Collectively as a group, we decided upon creating our own
interpretations of the various male warriors from different time periods. As a
unified collection, we created structural garments with three-dimensional
gradating plane transitions from a large scale to a smaller scale. The femininity in my knight inspired
garment is notable on the chest area of the bust where I created rhythm by
subtracting the negative space of a print I created that was inspired by the
chainmail links on a knight’s facemask. Chainmail links are a representation of
a man’s masculinity because of its metallic form with refined edges. This
masculinity is transformed into a lace-like texture that creates a suggestion
of femininity.
The
symmetrical form of my garment is concurrent in our collection, forming an
overall unified design. One structural element that is apparent in my garment
is the balance in weight amongst the shoulders and the hips sections because
the masses of the architectural structures are proportionate to each other. On
the shoulders are implied polyhedral structures that resemble the shoulder
armor on a medieval suit. This metal accent creates a warm feminine design by
adding gold decorative paper that mimics the same lacing technique that I had
manually created for the chest area. In contrast with the shoulders, the hips
feel more masculine because of the thick matte black foam core. This was used
to create serial plane, which were scored to follow the form of the hips.
Beneath the gradating structure on the hips are randomly ordered pieces of
black paper with a minimal use of the gold decorative paper, creating a tactile
look that interplays with both masculine and feminine materials. Overall, the
combinations of masculine and feminine materials create synergy and without
these components, my theme would not be evident.
