Critique #1: Sarah W.

 Yves-Olivier Mandereau, Teaching Assistant

This piece is really compelling because not only is it clearly very important to you by your description, but it’s also really relevant and can definitely resonate with a lot of different people. This idea of make up and having to put on a face. It’s a great subject matter, and it’s compelling, and it’s really pulling me in.

I also really like that you treated the text, “I hate my face” in cursive, almost as if somebody had put make up on the text itself. That’s a really interesting play on words, and definitely keep going with those types of ideas.

The composition however, can use a little bit of work. There’s not a lot of work that I, the viewer have to do at this point, because you’re giving me all this information. Everything is just kind of spread out, kind of even spacing, and the text is right there in front of me. So I wonder how you could play around with the composition to make it a little bit more intriguing and make the viewer do a little bit more work and maybe in that the viewer can find a meaning on their own for themselves.

In your text statement you mention your make up bag, and the piece is kind of like a make up corner, but I wonder if you could do another one about your make up bag and kind of show, kind of the chaos within the bag.

I think that overall your use of the paint is really great, the transparency of all the bottles is believable and really interesting.  I think that’s definitely difficult to achieve with acrylic paints, so that is great.

I would suggest that you look at the artist Barbara Kruger, and also Mickalene Thomas. They’re both female feminist artists that have done a lot of work in terms of body/image and influence of society,