Labels

This mixed media piece started with the working title, ‘Red Dmitri’. I came across the image of a tattooed gentleman (featured at the centre of the piece). He seemed to have a very fearsome appearance. Was this initial impression justified? After using him in an image transfer session with the gelli plate, I began to think about his character; who he was, what his life history might be. I also recollected individuals I’d met in the past whose appearance didn’t necessarily match the person inside. The more I thought about the character, the more the idea of labels emerged; phrases we attach to people based on prejudice or past experience in an effort to conveniently pigeon-hole them.

Although this is a political piece in one sense, it doesn’t take any one particular position. Questions you might like to think about are:

Who is Red Dmitri? Is he an immigrant? Are his politics left, right or something else? Are they actually a ‘he’? Which of the illustrated labels would you assign to them? Are the labels actually phrases that Dmitri assigns to other people? What do those labels actually mean? Which particular forms of words are used more frequently on the political left or right? How useful or harmful are they?

Perhaps you can think of others.

In terms of technique, this was yet another experiment in colours and layers. Where do your thoughts take you when you consider the colours in the various quadrants? By the way, the letters that form the labels were all taken from a particular red-top tabloid. I don’t know if this is significant or not!