My most developed piece

I wanted to include a shaped painting I believe is the most developed as well as one of my most recent sketches because it’s what I’m planning on doing next, which is a development in itself.

The first one is a front side of a woman, the back of her and the female reproductive system covered in thorns. The front of the woman has an opening full of roses to represent the woman as something natural as well as the stereotypes/standards such as “an English rose” that signifies beauty, fragility and purity. The reproductive system links to this because I added thorns to the tubes, showing strength and perhaps dangerous side to women, which hasn’t been seen in the media until very recently. The woman’s back represents someone revealing themselves, for example, in photographs, thus showing their sexuality and being allowed to.

The shaped painting is half a self portrait, half a portrait of all women. I mean this in the way that it looks like me, but represents my freedom and the freedom that all women should have. I tried showing this by using sunglasses because it’s an obvious “easy going” look, as well as having a darker side or meaning, which is exactly how I see women’s rights at this point in time. I wanted to display how many women in Western countries are much freer than other women in perhaps poorer countries, showing how there is still a lot of work to do before women are treated totally equal. However, this does not mean that Western countries offer women freedom within some subjects, such as abortion, as they don’t allow women to receive education in Pakistan which made headlines recently when the Taliban shot 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai in the head for pursuing her right to learn.