Survival & Synthetic

For this project, I wanted to link my survival with this project. So the idea was to look at “if female Empowerment is fake/artificial/produced.

Focus Topic: Harvey Weinstein’s Case

I took that idea and applied it to the Harvey Weinstein case because his case was the catalyst to the “Me Too Movement. The idea of it wasn’t for this man in power getting exposed for his abuse than the movement wouldn’t have gained as much friction as it did.

Initial Ideas for photomontages:

With these thumbnails, I wanted the imagery to be on the nose. To be really clear on what I’m talking about because of how sensitive this topic is.

Photomontages

This piece was based on some of the women that targeted Harvey Weinstein.

Rose McGowan, who initially started the wave in 2016-2017 to take down Weinstein in a series of tweets that exposed him of sexually assaulting her.

Courtney Love, publicly mentioned on a red carpet that “If Harvey Weinstein invites you to a dinner party don’t go”. This was way before the “Me Too Movement” but it was a well-known secret that Harvey Weinstein abused his power to sexually assault women in the industry.

Tarale Wally & Miriam Haley are 2 out of the 6 women that testified against Harvey Weinstein in court and ultimately got him.

I think with this piece I wanted to be a reversal so instead of it being Harvey Weinstein targeting women it would b the other way around. Women targeting him for all the harm that he’s done.

This piece is a visual representation of how Hollywood already knew what was going on about Harvey Weinstein but continued to be silent because of how powerful he was. The New Yorker describes the whole situation best say it was an “OPEN SECRET”.

This piece references the whole fact that during 2016-2017 more and more news started to come out of Harvey Weinstein’s misconduct so to destroy all these allegations. Harvey Weinstein acquired this group to spy on women. Like Rose McGowan and kill any forthcoming stories.

For this photo montage, I wanted to allude to the idea of ‘what’s behind the door’ kind of like what happens in the dark mentality. During 2015 NYPD operated a sting operation against Harvey Weinstein. Getting audio like this, “ON EVERYTHING IM A FAMOUS GUY” and “IM USED TO THAT”. I wanted to visual how trapped Ambra Battilana must have felt during this whole situation.

Concepts for this project:

• Evolution of women rage (timeline) • Working Class and feminism. • Hatred that women have against each other because of the Patriachy

The Idea For This Project:

The initial idea was that I take these really traditional artworks and rework them to have a counterpart that would be more ’glorified’ in away.

Photo montages:

A series of photomontages that go with the initial idea.

Kim Kardashian as the Virgin Mary: The idea for this piece is that I chose a specific word to look at. The word was SLUT. The meaning behind the word is a woman who is considered immoral because of her sexual relations. Kim Kardashian came to fame because of her sex tape and has been called a slut throughout her career. Virgin Mary: Virgin Mary is the complete opposite of Kim Kardashian. She’s pure, a vestal.

Megan Fox as Lady Liberty: The word I chose to focus on for this piece was the word ’PUSSY’. The word can be used as a vulgar term for a vagina or a term to call someone a coward. In terms of why I linked this word to Megan Fox. Megan Fox is an actress that was seen as a ’sex symbol’ and nothing else. Throughout her career, she’s been fighting with directors, producers over her sexualization in the media.

Lady Liberty: Delacroxi depicted Liberty as both an allegorical goddess figure and a robust woman of the people. I think what links these two figures together was that fact that there both fighting for a cause. To mention the quote on the bottom. It was from a film that Megan Fox did and becamea cult classic of hers. It was claimed to be a feminist film and I wanted to kind of say ’Fuck you to the patriarchy’.

Angelina Jolie and Billy Thorton as “American Gothic”: The word I focused on for this was ‘TRAMP’. The meaning of the word is another version of a slut but instead of being visibly out there with her promiscuity, it’s more disguised. I chose Angelina Jolie because she’s portrayed as such a classy woman in the media and she has no wrongs. I wanted to subvert that image of her.

American Gothic: American Gothic is the 1930s painting by Grant Wood, Wood was inspired to paint it in Eldon, Iowa. The painting depicts a farmer standing beside his daughter often mistaken for his wife

Paris Hilton as “The Birth of Venus”: The word is was looking at for this piece was WHORE. A whore describes a person that has many sexual partners. During her peak, Paris Hilton came to fame due to her late-night persona. This made her a fixture of tabloids. Also, a sex tape of her and her boyfriend got leaked which projected her into global fame.

The Birth of Venus: The birth of Venus is a painting by the Italian artist Sandro Bottelli probably made around the 1480s. It depicts the goddess Venu arriving at the shore after her birth when she emerged from the sea as a fully grown woman.

Initial Influences:

Alexa Kondakov was a visual influence because of his series called “Art History in Contemporary Life” pretty much captures what I wanted my visuals to have that contrast

Suffragettes to She-Devil influence was for the themes and the ideas of seeing the evolution of women being seen as saviours to being little through sexualization.

Photomontages #2:

Theses photomontages are a result of having to refine the previous ones because they were too busy.

Variation One: I wanted to solely focus more on Megan Fox but still have an element some type of fight that’s where the quote comes into play. “CHOOSE YOUR FIGHTER”. Which can also reflect on how Megan Fox decided to take on the media by addressing particular directors in interviews.

Variation Two: The original picture was Angelina Jolie as American Gothic. I went with a more simple approach. Focused more on the silhouette of there bodies instead of just collaging them on top of another image. I wanted to make a commentary on relationships with this piece.

Variation Three: Instead, of Paris being the main focus of the piece I went for Venus. I wanted to still have the of ‘Paris Hilton’ look to it. That’s why the background pink so that links up. With the quote, “I WANT THE WHOLE WORLD OR NOTHING” I wanted to keep the same element of vanity that the first one had.

Variation Four: For this variation, I wanted to touch on the topic of religion. So this would be a continuation of the photograph of Kim Kardashian as the Virgin Mary. Like all the previous photographs this one follows a limited colour palette and I wanted to be vague on what I was referencing. Which is the story of how Adam & Eve met.

Further Influences:

I used both of these accounts in my photomontages to add text and imagery just to create that difference.

@VERY REAL FANTASY: From this account, I used most was the text because I liked how textured it was and the text has this comic book feel that I wanted to have in my work.

@WE’RE NOT REALLY STRANGERS: What I wanted to incorporate in my work was the general topics being commented on.