Post 3

After struggling with anxiety for so long it’s become a huge part of me. It’s something I constantly think about… everyday. It’s debilitating. What baffles me is that, globally, almost 300 million people suffer from an anxiety disorder, yet it remains stigmatized. Mental Disorders in general remain stigmatized despite how much of the world’s population suffer. Society has not placed enough importance on mental health leading to prejudice attitudes around mental illness. People assume that they will be rejected socially and believe they lack value because of it. These stigmas not only diminish self esteem, but robs those people of social opportunities. For example, denied employment or denied accommodation for the illness. A lot of this stems from the lack of knowledge on mental illness. We are not taught enough in school. Our mental health is equally important as our physical health. 

For my semester project I drew inspiration from the artist Candy Chang. She’s an artist, designer, and urban planner who explores making cities more comfortable and contemplative places. She believes in the potential of introspection and collective wisdom in public space to improve our communities and help us lead better lives. After struggling with grief and depression, she channeled her emotional questions into her work. One of her most famous projects, Before I Die, “reimagines the ways the walls of our cities can help us grapple with mortality and meaning as a community today.” This is an interactive project for people to share their hopes and dreams. Over 5,000 Before I Die walls have been created by communities in over 75 countries, including China, Iraq, Argentina, Nigeria, and Kazakhstan. Her other projects, Confessions and A Monument for the Anxious and Hopeful really resonated with me and my struggles with mental illness. Chang’s public art works are internationally renowned for their vulnerability and interactivity. Looking at her project A Monument for the Anxious and Hopeful made me happy. It made me feel like I wasn’t alone. A lot of times I feel isolated and that there’s no one else that can understand or relate to what I feel, but Candy Chang’s work changed that. She truly is an amazing artist and activist. 

          Like Candy Chang, I want to create a safe space for people to reflect, share, understand, and connect. When you suffer from mental illness, speaking about it can be extremely hard. Through this project I want to allow people, whether you suffer from mental illness or not, to share, anonymously, their fears and their deepest thoughts because we have more in common with each other than you think. My idea for the project is to shine light on anxiety by creating a wall similar to Candy Chang’s. I want to place my piece in GSUB where people can fill out these little cards that read “my biggest fear is” and place them on my wall. Reading what other people hang onto the wall may help someone in knowing they aren’t alone. Knowing that someone else shares the same fears as you is comforting. I hope I’ll be able to offer people some sort of relief in knowing that they aren’t alone.

Sources
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=2ahUKEwj_xM-XoIzmAhUiUt8KHUZkCZkQFjAAegQICRAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcandychang.com%2F&usg=AOvVaw1-9F_iB8gz7L6cc8tbwqmn
https://www.ted.com/speakers/candy_chang
This Artist Turns Anxiety And Fear Into Public Art - Forbeshttps://www.forbes.com › sites › janeclairehervey › 2018/01/30 › this-artist...
https://www.who.int/whr/2001/media_centre/press_release/en/
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&ved=2ahUKEwjPzZvmoIzmAhVmTd8KHROeBwYQFjADegQIDxAI&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.medicalnewstoday.com%2Farticles%2F322877.php&usg=AOvVaw2hh_ZMZnQaM0TCrarV_izI

Inspiration

My topic is on immigration but focuses on undocumented immigrants. There are two artists that caught my attention the most out of the artists that I researched and they were Tatyana Fazlalizadeh and Felipe Baeza. Tatyana Fazlalizadeh has some projects that truly inspire me and are connected to my project. Some of the projects that I liked are: A Portrait of My Father as an Alien and America is Black. "Portrait of My Father as an Alien" was an oil painting of her dad's resident ID card he received when he immigrated from Iran. I loved how she took the image of her dad as an Alien, as depicted by the United States, and brought awareness so others can see her father as more than an "Alien", so they can realize that he is a father, a husband, a friend, a human being with the same rights as anyone born here. She callenges people to be aware and careful of criminalizing immigrants just for being immigrants or undocumented and instead lift them up and respect them and their rights in the United States. Her street art “America is Black” had the words “America is Black. It is Native. It Wears A Hijab. It is a Spanish Speaking Tongue. It is Migrant. It is a Woman. It is Here. It Has Been Here. And It’s Not Going Anywhere painted on a wall in Oklahoma. She basically painted a diverse group of women and said, “This piece was done specifically to challenge whiteness and the accepted idea of who an American is.This work is declaring that people who are non-white and male are a part of this country, are integral to this country, and are not going anywhere” ( HuffPost, Frank). On another note, Felipe Baeza also had some projects that I felt motivated by and related to my project well and they were: Untitled (so much darkness, so much brownness), The Forgotten and Underlying Borders. The project, “Untitled (so much darkness, so much brownness), Forgotten and Underlying Borders” all have one message to them and that is that Americans focus on the negative connotation given to immigrants but never focus on the part of this being a country that promises to fulfill dreams and that immigrants are ‘real’ people trying to succeed in a country that is native to them and they are not all criminals. 

The Forgotten

Consecutively, both of these artists have created activist artwork as i explained before and they’ve used their artwork to create advocacy and bring awareness to different topics. For example, Tatyana Fazlalizadeh focuses a lot of her artwork not only on immigration but women and their rights. I will link down below some of her artwork but she likes to bring awareness that it’s not ok to cat-call women just because they are dressed a certain way. Felipe Baeza creates advocacy and brings awareness to immigration by making people realize that everyone deserves an equal opportunity by using his graphic artwork which I will also link below. The details in Baeza’s art captivates people and it paints out this world’s harsh reality. Thus, I will raise awareness by creating a video that opens the eyes of blind Americans who brand undocumented immigrants as criminals, rapists, job-stealers, etc., and allow them to see life through their eyes.

Tatyana Fazlalizadeh's "Portrait of My Father as an Alien," 2018.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/t-magazine/immigration-art.html

https://ruthprokopchuk.wixsite.com/migraciones-y-arte/post/portrait-of-my-father-as-an-alien

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/t-magazine/immigration-art.html

felipe baeza artwork

http://tlynnfaz.com

jhakeer johnson

 Tough to kill is an art piece that stand out to show the faces of HIV.  Tiko Kerr is an artist from Vancouver  that used used old HIV medication bottles that he used for himself to make a portrait of himself. The bottles were used HIV medication that Kerr had used because he was diagnosed with HIV. This  artwork goes with the main objective  of my project is to humanize HIV patients. To de-stigmatize the stereotypes and educated the people on there ignorance. Many people feel as though people who contract HIV or has been diagnosed are not human and outcast them as if they are not humans. Many people are quick to judge the person and not seeing the effort it takes to stay alive living with this disease, some people living with this disease have to decided to make their grave already.  The artwork shows the face of someone who is infected with HIV and being productive in life that everything they touch is not going to die.  Even the name of the artwork says it all "tough to kill".
  The artwork shows the endurance and the scars people who are infected with HIV may go through.

Another is the famous designer Versace. Here is a picture of a Gianni Versace dress in red. Gianni Versace was a designer who was Gay and was diagnosed with HIV.  Despite him being diagnosed with HIV he created many fabulous designs and is a world renown designer even in his death. When people found out about his diagnosis in the 90's he lost a little bit of business but not enough to damage his business.  Despite finding out his diagnosis many people decided to  still buy his designs and recognized that his designs were revolutionary. People realized that the fashion that the designs were more brilliant and his work stood out more than the work.
 Yes these are not people of color  but the message of overcoming the stigma stands out even more. Yes people who are caucasian face discrimination because of this disease but its those who are raised in poverty and received melanin are those who are unrepresented.
 These two artist are a prime example of beating the  stigma of HIV that are placed upon gay men in general. Being an advocate for the black gay men who are underrepresented in media and also under represented in the aids community. Many black men die from lack of medication due to this disease and don't receive quality healthcare. It is important to use the face of the oppressors to  get the point across. I plan to find black artistry with HIV advocacy but in order to get the point across I must use the demographic that are well represented.


   

Post 3-Mariah Torres

"Emu Wear" by Maria Fernanda Cardoso

http://mariafernandacardoso.com/homepage/animal-art/emu-wear/

Emu Wear is a collection created by Colombian artist, Maria Fernanda Cardoso. Emus were at one time almost extinct in Australia due to people killing them to protect crops, for food, or for their feathers. Feathers, specifically Emu feathers are non-allergenic and versatile, which is a high demand for fashion industries. Down feathers can be stuffed into fabrics to create jackets or pillows. Tail or wing feathers can be a decorative touch to a fashion piece. Big fashion industries such as Chanel, Balenciaga, Dior, and Yves Saint Laurent have created several fashion pieces with emu feathers. Celebrities in last year's Met Gala have worn feathered pieces as well, which stirred up animal activists. The argument of using real feathers in fashion is still relevant. I was inspired by Cardoso's pieces because it showed some historical background of where she had come from and how people would use the feathers of Emu's. Cardoso's pieces have given me the idea to focus on the fashion industry usage on animals. 

I have done some research on emu feathers in fashion and read some articles that farms would live pluck birds in order to ship out to fashion industries quickly. I was thinking if people in the past who mostly relied on animals had to live pluck Emus or kill them first. 

"Kill to Dress" by Jo Frederiks 

https://www.redbubble.com/people/equine/works/14586530-kill-to-dress

Since I have been focusing on animal cruelty in the fashion industry, I have found this artist who has painted a portrait of a woman wearing bodies of skinned animals. Jo Frederiks is an Australian artist who is devoted to animal activism. Due to growing up in a cattle field, Frederiks had never eaten meat and persuades art consumers to go vegan through her pieces. I feel like this art piece definitely summarizes what we do with animal skins in fashion. I'm glad there are options now to get faux fur and faux feathers. I try to find animal cruelty free beauty items as well (E.L.F, Jeffree Star makeup, and Lush items are my favorite to use). According to Jeffree Star, there are some eyeshadow palettes that used crushed bugs (called Carmine) in order to get pigment. Some lipsticks use fish scales in order to get a pearly quality. There are a lot of things that animals are used for in fashion, so do a double-check for a bunny with his ears in a heart icon for animal cruelty-free products or just ask anyone for faux choices. 

Post 3

For my final project I will be creating a Marijuana Sculpture that speaks on the Medical benefits of it, as well as pointing out the desperate need for a prison reform based on the inmates suffering in jail for what is now legal in more than half the U.S states. As I was researching activist artwork for Marijuana I found that it was actually quiet difficult to find artists who second my position. After looking for quiet some time I finally found a few artist who really connected with the theme of my project. The first piece of art that I discovered was out of a 420 art gallery that I stumbled upon online. The piece is called "God Given" by Carlos Castillo created in 2015. Currently this oil and soft pastel piece is going for $4,400. This piece stuck out to me because it is beautiful, the colors and the message really stuck with me. I also loved the fact that it is a different take on the famous The Creation Of Adam by Italian artist Michelangelo. If you look closely you can see the woman to the left resting on a big nug of weed while the man hanging from the clouds passes a pretty hefty joint.

The second piece of art that I discovered was painted in 1994 in New York City by a man named Fred Tomaselli. The piece goes by the name of Super Plant and is currently held at the James Cohan Gallery in New York. In this classic painting the work is strictly dedicated to marijuana. The artist stated that the black background and minimalist style is to highlight the plants delicate, natural beauty without compromising his signature sense of psychedelia. I liked this piece because like the artist said it is very simple and delicate but a lot is going on in the picture. It is capturing the root of the life of the plant, all the way to the blooming flowers. 

These artist have collectively went against the "social norm" that society pins on us when it comes to Marijuana use. Both of these artist are shedding light on the subject in ways that a lot of other artists and people are scared to do. The message that these artists put out there is the point that this is a natural plant, as Carlos Castillo based his painting name on "God Given". I think that the artists are doing a good job on educating the public about the cannabis industry through their artwork and gallery shows. One thing that I can say I seen more is the focus of prison reform aspect of the whole marijuana ordeal.

Castillo, Carlos. “God Given.” ART420, 2015, www.artfourtwenty.com/gallery.

Tomasallini, Fred. “8 Weed Artworks That Will Make You High.” Artnet News, 29 Oct. 1994, news.artnet.com/art-world/marijuana-weed-art-cannabis-artworks-338428. 

God Given by Carlos Castillo (2015) - $440

God Given by Carlos Castillo (2015) - $440

Mini Post 3

For my project, I will be talking about the issue of Police Brutality. There are a lot of works and artists that talk about this subject, but one that I was fascinated with was K. Ryan Henley. He said and I quote, “I was sitting in an LA cafe when I heard other diners on their mobiles, reporting how the Grand Jury had decided not to indict Darren Wilson, the officer who shot Mike Brown,” she says. “There were already protesters lining up and blocking sections of the freeway in LA. Having grown up there, and having come of age around the time of the Rodney King beating and ensuing unrest, I was reminded of the anger and turmoil surrounding the issue of police brutality, and I wanted to express my own feelings about how little has changed. I ended up posting a portrait of Brown I’d made the previous summer and got a huge response. The New York Grand Jury neglected to indict Daniel Pantaleo, Eric Garner’s killer, only days later, and I posted a portrait of Garner as well.” 


Work made by individuals from Art Responders framed the reason for VIRAL. The display incorporates representations of surely understood unfortunate casualties—Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, and Michael Brown, to give some examples—nearby craftsmanship memorializing under-announced episodes, similar to the homicide of Alex Nieto, a 28-year-elderly person shot by San Francisco police while holding a taser. The show is organized as a visual course of events of occurrences, extending over the display dividers. Content, music, drawings, compositions, and video chronicle the critical laws and socio-specialized advancements identified with the utilization of extrajudicial power against non-white individuals.





There is also a music video that I have chosen to include that shows a physical battle between a dark youngster and a white cop. The two move around the road, snatching and stifling each other, from day to night. The battle is in the end taken to the high schooler's home, and finishes with the two sitting on the edges of a bed with their backs to each other, wheezing for air. Although Hamilton has said that the video is about police brutality, police are on-screen for less than a minute. And aside from a few seconds of hosing, the excessive use of force that’s come to define brutality in recent months is glaringly absent. There are no guns, Tasers, or beatings. The video is a far cry from another police brutality-themed music video released last month.
The video is about the continuous fight between dark individuals and law implementation, which has left the two gatherings tired. Executive A.G. Rojas clarified, "The film starts and it feels like they have been battling for a considerable length of time, they're depleted, not a solitary punch is tossed, their viciousness is conveyed through cumbersome, crude feeling. They've just battled their way past their decisions and educated scorn toward each other. Our objective was to feature the purposelessness of the viciousness, not praise it."

https://youtu.be/PkGwI7nGehA

https://youtu.be/50hjiawKKVA

I am going to relate this to my project by making a poster that shows police officers that were involved in significant police brutality events and show what they did. I will be writing wanted above their names and what they have done and how they get away with what they did. I'll be making several posters and putting them up around the area that I live in to raise awareness and show people that not all Police Officers are pure good.

Post 3 (Inspiration )

https://nga.gov.au/exhibition/spaceinvaders/default.cfm?IRN=162193&BioArtistIRN=33679&MnuID=4&GALID=33679&viewID=3&DTLVIEW=TRUE

I have chosen the topic of homelessness for my project because I know it's something that most people till this day still feel somewhat uncomfortable speaking about. There are numerous artists who address the issue of homelessness. One of my favorite artists who addresses homelessness through art is an Australian artist named Meek. Meek's project “Begging for Change” 2004 is a painted picture on a street wall of a homeless man holding up a sign reading “Keep your change, I want change” He stenciled this powerful image on a wall and while technically illegal, it has an important message. Giving a homeless person some spare change can help them in the short term by providing some food, or even cause harm if the person buys drugs with the money. The artist’s point is that fundamental political and social change is necessary to solve this problem. This art piece shows activism because its opening our eyes that what we are doing isn't enough. This piece is meant to make us want to do more than just give money it should make us want to create change.

Another artist that addresses homelessness is John D’oh who painted on a city wall a maid sweeping under a rug with a large caption on top that reads “You Can't Hide Homelessness”. This art piece is expressing no matter how much society and the community try to act like homelessness isn't a thing and try to make a city look better through gentrification the problem of homelessness will always exist. After learning that I wanted to focus on homelessness for my project I began to observe from a distance how my community interacted with their local homelessness people. The results were devastating but not at all shocking. Most people walking would try not to speak or even make any eye contact with the homeless people they saw on the streets. In the reality of these people mind homeless people don’t exist, they don’t mean anything, and they have no one to blame for their life choices that landed them being homeless but themselves. Most people think that all homeless people are either drug addicts, alcoholics, murderers, or just in general evil people who deserve to be homeless. The truth is people can end up homeless for many reasons that any of us can face. 

https://theartblogger54.wordpress.com/2018/11/07/street-art-by-john-doh-12-you-cant-hide-homelessness/

Finally, Another artist who has motivated me to focus my project on homelessness is street artist Michael Aaron Williams who purposely puts up his homeless street people in places where others will find them. He doesn’t glue them up, rather, he simply tapes them to the walls in places that are most of the time very populated so that anyone who passes by might want to stop, take them off the wall, and bring them home. And if no one does? “They will cease to exist,” Williams says. “They will be destroyed and blown away in the wind or other forces that will rip them down and throw them away.” “Ultimately, it’s up to the viewer to decide on the fate of these characters; whether they’ll end up discarded, trampled on, and thrown away or lovingly taken home.” In conclusion, my project will show that it is in fact possible to get to know someone who is homeless and prove that they are people like you and me who maybe only made a mistake that led them to have to live the way that they do.

https://mymodernmet.com/homeless-street-art-10-pieces/

https://mymodernmet.com/homeless-street-art-10-pieces/

Post 3 - Inspiration

FINAL PROJECT 

One of the projects that inspired mine was The Ocean Cleanup, The Ocean Cleanup is a none-profit organization that are developing advanced technology to help clean up the Ocean. The Ocean Cleanup are mainly targeting the main source of pollution where the garbage is piling up which is The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is where most marine debris end up because of the two different currents, the debris get stuck in between them where they cannot go anywhere, thus, this is where they accumulate. The Ocean Cleanup is making a technology that flows with the Ocean current and this technology collects the garbage that passes by its path. This technology is also around the Great Pacific Garbage Patch where it will eventually collect the trash that are piling up because of the two different currents that ocean have. This way, it will eliminate most of the garbage and slowly help the ocean become cleaner. 

Another organization that is helping clean up the ocean is called, 4ocean. 4ocean started in Bali, Indonesia where a beach is covered with plastic bottles. 4ocean has been spread around the world, from Florida, Haiti and Bali by doing so there are a lot of people and volunteers that are helping clean up the ocean. They are also spreading awareness by uploading videos on social media about their invention for cleaning up the ocean. The machine they invented is called the Mobile Skimmer, the Mobile Skimmer is equipped with two hydraulic arms that actually dips down into the water and collect garbage along the way into a conveyor belts where it then falls into a garbage bin on the machine. This helps make the job easier collecting garbage rather than a net which may take longer. This is the first custom made vessel for 4ocean and they will improve it as the years go on. 

These two projects inspired me to do mine because we all know that Ocean pollution is not the only pollution that is active. There are seven types of pollution which are Water, Air, Soil, Thermal, Radioactive, Noise and Light Pollution. If we can at least start getting rid of a few of this pollution, we can help the Earth become a better place to live in since we are suffering from Global Warming, just like Italy where they had flooding. By helping out to clean the ocean we can start to help the marine life get an opportunity to have a better life and actually help them survive for a longer time. Since the ocean is filled with trash, that is what most animals are eating and the plastic that they eat takes a forever to be digested which will make them feel full for a while rather than eating actual food following the marine food pyramid. Cleaning up the ocean will give the marine life a better living situation in order for them to live longer without to actually consume the garbage they see floating around.

Links: The Ocean Cleanup / 4ocean

Inspiration

"Many Mansions" by Kerry James Marshall

The inspiration for my final project was from William Pope.L and Kerry James Marshall pieces. My research was based on home-ownership, which is equivalent to wealth, of African-American people since 1970s to this present day. Kerry Marshall’s work is based on “what it means to be black in America” and William Pope on the “Black Factory” Marshall’s piece on, “Many Mansions” depicted life in 1994 for a black person. The men in the piece are working as gardeners in formal clothing digging graves or planting. It’s like they are burying their dreams of ever living a wealthy life similar to white people who can even afford mansions. The distant project towers look blank, dead; the earth seems to bleed. We are in the middle of a second civil rights movement, and that the first one ever ended. In late-20th- and 21st-century America, and part of Mr. Marshall’s story, is of life in low-income housing projects. Projects that were designed by the government in the 1930s as alternatives to city slums. Once built, economic support was limited and by the 1960s the projects had worsened, becoming media symbols of poverty and crime.

"The Black Factory" by William L. Pope

Pope L. customized a van to collect donated “black objects” which was anything a person believed to represent blackness. The Black Factory runs on prejudices against black people. By collecting, recycling and peddling the ingredients for re-thinking blackness, the Black Factory transforms the tensions and contradictions of race into a field of possibility. It encourages us to take hold of the stereotypes of race and class which bind us to our lack of concern and to turn them around. It challenges us to struggle with the habitual ways in which we consume products, identities and ideologies. The Black Factory asks us to rise and collaborate in the creation of a community built not upon erasing but rather embracing our own differences and contradictions.

The large wealth gap between whites and blacks is as a result of home-ownership dating back to the period when segregation dominated and not much land was given to the black to own property. Comparing the data from 1976 to 2015, the percentage of home-ownership of blacks from the graph, “Home-ownership More Common among Whites than Other Racial and Ethnic Groups,” has not changed. If blacks were given the resources and opportunities of owning a home as a way of gaining wealth and passing it on for their generations, then home-ownership percentage would gradually increase. I will be raising awareness by creating a bank where African-Americans can be able to get loans with flexible APR rates with additional assistance in information on home-ownership according to their desired locations.

POST 3

An artist I looked into was Shantell Martin, the British designer with more than an inkling for comic-driven style, specifically in black and white. She states that, "Everyone is in a rush these days! Take your time, do what you love, be honest with yourself and others around you, educate yourself about all aspects of the business from taxes to contracts to preservation of your works and also do an audit of your strengths and weaknesses and THEN create a plan to focus on those weak points. We no longer live in a day and age where artist can get away with simply making art (unless your extremely privileged). "From feelings of alienation to messages of empowerment, connects with my project. Also, the idea of writing on clothing, I wanted to include in my film. She also focuses on finding self in drawing.

She also mentions for her, this goes back to being a kid who is mixed race, having people trying to say that I had to be this or I had to be that. I was like, “No, I can just be me.” Regardless of the medium, regardless of the industry, I’m going to do what I want. I’m going to collaborate with who I want. I’m going to say yes to projects that interest me.

If you write out “WHO ARE YOU,” you’ll see that the first three letters are W A Y. So essentially it’s about trying to find your way in life. About asking ourselves that question by posing it to the outside world.

“WHO ARE YOU” eventually turned into “YOU ARE YOU,” which is a destination. Then “YOU ARE YOU” became “ARE YOU YOU,” because when you get to that destination and figure out who you are, you have to start all again, in a different way. You’re asking that initial question of “who are you?” or “how are you finding your way?”—but you’re asking it in a new, unique way.

I like that she values with being honest with yourself. Finding yourself in what you do and figuring your sense of self.

Jenny Holzer and her project Truisms is insightful, aggressive, or comic, they express multiple viewpoints that the artist hopes will arouse a wide range of responses.

A small selection of Truisms includes: "A lot of professionals are crackpots"; "Abuse of power comes as no surprise"; "Bad intentions can yield good results"; and "Categorizing fear is calming." The nearly three hundred sayings and slogans utilize a series of modern clichés or commonly held truths. She began simplifying big ideas from her readings into concise statements and phrases and putting up signs around Manhattan. She wrote all of her own clichés, thinking that if people heard something that was a little different than usual that they would remember it more clearly. She liked to keep her statements as short and summarizing and wanting it to able to reach the largest crowd as possible. “You only have a few seconds to catch people, so you can’t do long, reasoned arguments, but I hope they’re not simplistic or idiotic”, Holzer said on the topic. Her goal was for people to see them, read them, laugh at them, and be provoked by them. I She like the aggressiveness and the kind of futuristic beauty of the electronics.

From Truisms, I enjoyed reading about how straightforward and direct the statements she would put out there that she wanted to bring awareness to which is what I’m also doing in my project. Also, that she acknowledges that in order to capture people’s attention has to be short and to the point. You have to create something that will grab people’s attention.

Barbara Kruger - Most of her work consists of black-and-white photographs, overlaid with captions, stated in white-on-red Futura Bold Oblique or Helvetica Ultra Condensed text. The phrases in her works often include pronouns such as "you", "your", "I", "we", and "they", addressing cultural constructions of power, identity, and sexuality.

She would put together photographs with pithy and assertive text that challenges the viewer. Her method includes developing her ideas on a computer, later transferring the into images. Her most recognizable slogans read "I shop therefore I am," and "Your body is a battleground," appearing in her trademark white letters against a red background. She draws attention to ideas such as feminism, consumerism, and individual autonomy and desire, frequently appropriating images from mainstream magazines and using her bold phrases to frame them in a new context.

Kruger has said that "I work with pictures and words because they have the ability to determine who we are and who we aren't." A larger category that threads through her work is the assumptions and alteration of existing images.

She states that, “Pictures and words seem to become the rallying points for certain assumptions. There are assumptions of truth and falsity and I guess the narratives of falsity are called fictions. I replicate certain words and watch them stray from or coincide with the notions of fact and fiction.”

I think about text and what type of visuals and size for creating the piece.

When it comes to my project these are all connections that relate to it. There’s a common pattern amongst the project and what I want to do. Regarding to how I want to execute it and create. I’m just honestly tired of society. We live in a fucked up world. I just want people to own up to themselves and who they are and stop trying to project to this so called perfect life or wannabe life. It’s interesting to see other artists and what they’ve done. I don’t like being influenced by other people’s work but it’s interesting to see what people have done. That’s me owning up to this is what is important to me to be able to express how I feel and that I feel it’s problematic that there’s so many toxic people out there. If people, make projects or films or whatever related about people creating fake personalities than that’s an issue. Psychological abuse and being messed up by people who don’t really take the time to get to know their own selves. Trying to find people to just fill their void and rely on others to find the answers for them. When in reality, no one can ever really figure you, but yourself.