This is my first oil painting for my concentration on the "façade" of humans. This piece is an abstraction of cutting, or scarring on wrists. Beginning the piece, I was not sure where it would go and had planned for the arms to have much more of a pallor to them. But I'm not very good at predicting how my paintings end up, especially in regards to the color palette.
I began with a base of the primary colors red, blue, and yellow after sketching the outline. Then I simply took white paint and blended them where I thought it should be blended. I was very pleased with the way the arms and hands turned out and was hesitant to begin the rest of the painting. I ended up doing a wash in a brownish color on the background that vaguely resembles a wood grain. Then, after much contemplation, I did go in with the slash of red on the wrists, adding a bit of other colors to create my dimension, and made the paint in that area extremely think so that it raised off the canvas. Then I made the sleeves flesh-like.
The painting could be interpreted in a number of ways, depending on the viewer. (That's one of my favorite parts about my concentration, that the viewer can relate my work to his or her own life and own contemplations/struggle). The background serves to separate the arms from whomever they belong to, making them iconic. It is possible that the arms belong to two different people (though they are originally both mine, outstretched). And they could be out in front of the person(s), or vertically hanging. The scarring/blood on the arms has a feeling that even one's insides are being taken away by society. Whether it be the trek of the common worker or the insecurities of a teen causing the scars, each of them labors internally, finding a way to cope with this world.
