We All Build Our Own Armor

Hey All,

So I completed this piece about forever ago, and entirely forgot to post it...

This is the final for my one of my several surface design (textiles) classes here at Uni. The assingment was juust to make our own interpretation of the term "second skin".

And being a HUGE NERD I got the approval from my professor to incorporate my love of Tony Stark (and really all things Marvel) into the project, which subject was simply “Second Skin”. So yeah, I made my own silk screen, screened the fabric, hand burned the fabric, cut and applied the fabric collage section, and did all the embroidery by hand and without pattern… so very glad it turned out alright.

I just need to actually get it into the studio to get better pictures of it one of these days...

…

<Begin Art Statement> (Read only if you want an explanation of this art piece)

So, the concept behind this piece came from the beginning concept of the duality of human nature, how we hide who we are from the world. We are so very incapable of being honest with how we feel, with our motivations, with truly expressing ourselves, that we build walls and armor and whole societies and civilizations just to hide ourselves. I have been dealing with quite a bit of crap in my own life along these lines, so it was very near and dear to my heart.

Then I remembered the work of Mark Newport, who does embroidery over comic books, and that got me thinking about how I could incorporate an already well known character who suffers from this sort of problem, and explain it in a visual way. Who better than Tony Stark, right? Oh, and I love the man… just saying… So dividing him in half, I showed that he constructed an entire suit of armour to protect himself from the world, wrapping himself in science and math and technology, using the analytical portion of his mind to separate himself from emotions and problems. On the other half, we see his real self, but its still tortured, haunted by lies and truths and all the hurtful things that people have spoken into his life, friends and enemies alike… because isn’t it just the truth that it’s the people we hold the closest who we give the power to hurt us the worst.