Matthew Scott's Art Blog: 'Worn'

For some time, the university has set a project brief for the end of the year in which the first years create an art piece that can be worn, as if some piece of clothing or costume. As part of an event towards the Christmas break, these first years than present themselves with their work as part of an unofficial catwalk.

I immediately took to this project with little to no problem, already well aware of what I was going to base this piece on.

The Dealer (2010)

The drawing shown above is of some unearthly figure I can recall seeing regularly through dreams I had in my rather angst-ridden period of living in Singapore. To this day, I have still yet to fully understand the sense of purpose in existing that this figure has always had for me. In any case, I decided to incorporate this character as the basis to this project brief.

I made the mask for the character primarily out of canvas, to give the head some structure while flexible enough given the shape I would make it into. Upon finishing the canvas head, I added layers of latex to work as its 'skin'. Yarn thread was also applied alongside the latex to recreate most of the details shown on The Dealer's face.

For rigid form, I made the horns firstly out of card before wrapping them in canvas and held together with latex. This would all be painted into what felt like the appropriate colour at the time.

Over the eye-holes, I decided to place acetate, which where then painted as well, as yellow. I tried to make sure the colouring over the acetate was more like a light wash, so as to not impair my eyesight.

In hindsight, I can't help but feel I made the colour of the Dealer's too vibrant. When thinking of the character more, I have lately begun to consider its colour more comparable to that of pale human skin.