Original Proposal

"Somewhere I find something trivial, the more trivial the better - something that doesn't say anything, but which suddenly stimulates my imagination and forces me to make a statement." - Hannah Hoch

          Last year I began to work with collage and more hands on processes for my assignments. I had always enjoyed doing this kind of work just for fun in my free time but until then had not started to think about using it in my work. I found it quite challenging to play out serious concepts when you are limited to already made images. It was quite overwhelming but I loved giving new life to old images that otherwise would remain in books and magazines sitting around collecting dust. So I would like to continue working with this process.

          As of right now, my idea is still a little up in the air. I did a lot of research on Hannah Hoch and other Dada and Surrealist artists. I have been very inspired by Hoch's aesthetics and loved reading about her stance on feminism and gender roles. I studied through a lot of paintings by surrealist artists too and even drew inspiration from those. Last year I did a bit of a commentary on what it's like to be a woman in a world which sometimes feels is completely run by men. I played with text phrases from teen magazines from the 1960's and placed them with images of women on absurd backgrounds. I found it interesting to work with old material as it shows how far we have come since then but also shows that in some cases we are still kind of in the same place with feminism and gender roles.

          At this point I am teetering between continuing with this sort subject matter or exploring surrealism a bit more. Last year I changed my idea several times as I was creating the collages as I was constantly being inspired to new ideas by the material I was using. I have begun working on it and I should be able to have a more solid idea in the next couple of weeks but this is where I am at right now.