Fade to Pink
This work comprises the "skin" aspect of the work "Swelter".
I don't tan, I burn. This makes the intensity of the Oklahoma sun particularly challenging for me. This piece illustrates this idea by comparing the increasingly red shades of my burned skin with Dante's layers of hell from the "Inferno".
With each jump in shade, I define the new layer with a label that imitates the pithy, off-handed manner paint companies use to name their colors. The inspiration and numbering system for each new label refers to a circle (or sub-circle) in Dante's "Inferno" and the specific torture that occurs there.
The materials I used were dozens of Elmer's Glue handprints (my left hand) cut into squares and attached to one another with more glue. I achieved the gradual tone change by adding drops of red tempura paint to the glue between impressions. The pattern is screen printed onto the glue, and the text was made with an office label maker.