Advanced Life Drawing : Skin Tone

I was quite nervous approaching our performance assignment, as it is something that is quite new to me. Over the past few weeks I have learned more about performance art than I ever have before, both through the life drawing class, and also through another art history class I am currently taking. I have grown to really appreciate performance art and the use of the body in creating pieces. I have discovered many artists that have really stood out to me and serve as inspirations.

It was very hard to see myself creating a piece that would be as thought provoking and creative as the artists I read about. But I decided to stop over thinking it and first think of concepts that I connected with. The great performance artists I researched conveyed a message with their pieces. In Loving Care, Janine Antoni addressed her identity as a woman in the context of society. In Ana Mendieta’s Body Tracks, the mark she makes with her body seems to signify a stance of victory, but the performance aspect involves her covering her hands in blood and dragging them down. I wanted to convey a message in a similar way; communicating my own identity and pain I have experienced in the past.

I wanted to revisit the subject matter that I addressed in my last assignment – race. I am focusing particularly on skin color and the aesthetic element, and the feelings that many young women of color experience in their childhood if they did not grow up around people who look like them. This is my score:

The performer will chose a paint that most closely resembles her dark skin tone

She will spread it on the floor

She will crush it under foot as if it is dirt

She will sit on it as if it is excrement

Then, she will rub it on herself.

Nadia Hayford

2015

This is based off experiences that I and other friends and family had growing up. I went to an elementary school that was predominantly white and was constantly reminded of how different I looked from everyone else. As a child I sometimes felt as though the color of my skin resembled dirt or excrement, and I would hope that it would somehow wash off, but of course it never would. Now, I have come to love my skin color and the heritage it represents, but in this piece I allow myself to revisit those feelings I had back when I was very young. When children do not see many other people who look like them, it is very easy to feel as though they look ugly or abnormal. The final part of the score shows eventual acceptance. That this color is not a separate or revolting thing, it is part of my beautiful self.

The Body in Art

Fluxus workbook

What about the black woman?

Performance Art Documentation

Feminism and Art