How Do You Depict Control?

After a talk with my mentor about the "Newspeak" brief, I have decided on a final idea of creating a piece that tackles the problem of forced marriages across the world and want to convey the helplessness of the situation of these young girls and women. I believe this connects to the concept of "Newspeak" due to the controlling nature of it as it brainwashes you into being happy. I especially want to mention the age of some of the girls who are being forced into marriage, many being underage, such as the advertisements you see on tv of young african/indian girls.

I see my strengths as being a painter so naturally I wanted to create either one large painting or a series of painting depicting the control of these women and the pressure from outside sources into unwanted marriages.

I wanted to paint onto different surfaces for the textures, add things to the paint to create depth, connect all of these women together through one commonality other than their situations, something that will aesthetically connect the paintings also. By adding fabric, like clothing they would all wear, painting on wood like desks and tables, metal like handles and cars, objects that everyone would come into contact with on an almost daily basis.  I want to try a range of colours either through colour theory with slight discolouring of the skin within the pictures or by creating an entirely new skin tone from the colours - possibly monochromatic.

I am toying with the idea of focusing on the eyes, reflecting the emotions these women would feel, what I would feel if it were me. Fear, anger, sadness... all can be reflected in the eyes. By compressing the area of which I look at it would reflect the idea of control. I had also thought of the idea of convey how trapped they are, showing a full portrait or at least of head and shoulders and making it seem like they are behind glass, pressed against it, still with the same emotions reflected on their faces. I plan to try out many different compositions for these pieces and hopefully one of them will be good enough for final display.

I am worried about the fact I will not have access to the college over the Christmas period and it would be easier to gain supplies from their where I know of the quality and can ask for help at any point. So I think I will need to stock up on woods, metals, and any other supplies I can think of so as I have enough for experimentation and final designs. It might end up I can't experiment on the surfaces that I would like to so many ideas will need to be tested straight into the sketchbook first.

I do like this idea and I hope it goes well... It has been a hard few weeks, very stressful... So I hope I can still get a good grade from this idea.

What is my Essay Even about?

My main idea for my contextual studies essay was to write about what I had for the last 2 years but in deeper detail. So for my first essay I had wrote about Disney's little mermaid in comparison with the original Hans Christian Andersen version and how the story had adapted from original to Disney and how the "art of story telling" had evolved from finely illustrated books to cutesy movies. 

My second year essay was on Ghibli movies and how they sought characters from old folk lore and myths. I mentioned how the use of these characters indicated Ghibli's worries about the environment and other factors like consumerism. 

For this year I had planned on a combination of both of these essays comparing Disney to Ghibli and how different cultures influence the same story making it be told differently. I had planned to compare Disney's Little Mermaid to Ghibli's Ponyo as they are both adaptations of Hans Christian Andersens Little Mermaid. I wanted to show how East and West had created different stories off of the same plot and folk tale. By comparing the underlying similarities and the major differences I had hoped to show the influence of the cultures from where the movies originate. 

However this year I have been advised to look into a different aspect of Disney to show how it is a powerhouse, running the world. I have looked into the capitalist ventures of the company to emphasise how they have changed from this all-American idyllic company to a greedy corporation.I wanted to mention Banksy's creation of "Dismaland" and compare his use of Disney's iconography to the new meanings he gives them, using them as a way of criticising capitalism and all things wrong with society. I have made reference to a town completely created by Disney called "Celebration Town" which shares some of the same artificial qualities as their theme-parks do.