Grrrl Power

Grrrl Power
Mixed media on canvas
24" x 16"
$450

This was the second painting I did using photos and transparencies. 

Whereas in Being 13 I used only dry media (paper, photos, transparencies, oil stick), in Grrrl Power I branched out into using a combination of dry media (paper, vintage wallpaper, photocopies, transparencies) and wet media (acrylic paint).

Grrrl Power began with a photograph that I had taken of my ten-year-old niece Leonie and her friend Annie.

In the photo, Leonie is impatient with posing and wanting to leave, while Annie is clowning around pulling her tiger t-shirt over her face.

I enlarged the photo to 11x17 and then used a photocopier to make lots of copies in various sizes. I used a stretched canvas as the support, and prepared it by "building" a surface of texture using old wallpaper and fabric. I then played around with various configurations of the photocopied images until something surfaced.

What I discovered is that the most evocative part of the image was Leonie’s posture* - her outstretched leg and beautifully curving outer arm. I decided to feature the shape of her arm by repeating it in diminishing sizes.

While I was working on the painting, I was thinking about what it means to be a girl in our society. To represent my hope that Annie and Leonie’s apparent joy and confidence would continue, I added the angel holding a candle. After adhering all the collage elements, I painted around and over the collage elements with acrylic paints.

*After reading this analysis, Leonie said "Aunty, I disagree.  The most evocative part of the image is the relationship between Annie and me."  Smart kid.