Wearable Art- Coral Reef

This work is inspired by artist Lorna Simpson. Aspects of the artists work that I am using for inspiration are the way she uses the head and the shoulder area to depict her collages of sculptural headpieces. For my project I am making it my own by using waterproof tape, styrofoam, toilet paper centers, Q-tips, and acrylic paint and much more. My goal of this wearable art is to include the arms and shoulders more than Simpson utilizes them in her collages. I want to reinterpret my inspiration artist's work by not copying the common shape of crystals she uses. Her work is also a social commentary on how black women or african americans are frozen or how cold things hinder progress. So she depicts ice and crystal like forms to create this conversation. My concept for this project is how African Americans are often misunderstood and judged by what is portrayed on tv and in history books. Our whole lives can be changed and determined by the word of another. I wanted to relate this idea to sea life and the ambiguity of the ocean. Just like the history of African Americans, some are terrified of the depth and what lies under. I want it to represent how diving deeper into the culture reveals beauty. I also want to represent the lives of the people of Africa that drowned and didn't survive the middle passage and the mythology of “the lost black atlantis.” I incorporated small chains from a necklace and a piece of net tied into a braid. Also a lot of nets to signify both the captivity and the sea self.