Looking at artists that work closely with the body and skin has inspired me to start looking at how we can make a different textile from the skin using makeup and other products. This changes that way that makeup is perceived, changes its use and primary function and thus does the same to the skin. I started with the basics and looked at how skin could be morphed and / or manipulated through textile. To further enhance this process I have had a look at textiles on WGSN, to see how viable it is to link my skin textiles with textures within fashion and styling. The below pictures are screenshots from the "graceful" trend of WGSN. I chose these o include because the soft textiles were reminiscent of skin to me, the bottom middle even looks like a fingerprint.
The above photo shows my three initial methods of skin aesthetic manipulation. The top photo shows a scarification technique using nose and scar wax, which is then smoothed over using baby oil. The second shows MAC mixing medium applied in dots and manually shaped drips. This is similar to the effect that Andew Gallimore used at Teatum Jones SS15 to create beads of sweat on the faces of his models (see below). I'm really intrigued by the dotted shapes that I made in testing though - they're translucent so they look like an extension of the skin, they look almost like a futuristic scale so this is definitely something that I'm going to keep in mind. Sweat is one of the body's natural responses to a range of emotions, so I'm really liking that I'm getting the chance to play with how this can not only be created and manipulated, but also percieved.
The final picture shows the effect of wax dripped directly onto the skin but I'm really not happy with the aesthetic outcomes. There would also be a health and safety issue with dropping hot wax onto a model and we would have to be careful not to burn or harm them. Overall, I don't think that hot wax is a good idea. I do like the idea of it though so I will keep testing to see if this is something that could be portrayed using different medium.
In the mean time I need to continue to test this idea of scarification and extensions of the skin through ideas like mixing medium and other transparent materials.
SCARIFICATION
I wanted to go back to the idea of scarification and see if there was something I could do to enhance the creativity and art base of it. To do this I had to go back to basics and ask myself what I am REALLY trying to do with showing scars. I'm trying to show, through that emotional process, that they can be beautiful. Personally, I've come to accept my own scars and I want the way that I feel about them to come through in this project. I had a few ideas to create a deep scar but fill it with metallics and / or pigment to show that beauty is more than just the surface of scar.
Although they are just rough initial tests to get ideas I do like the concept of what I've done above. The next thing that I need to do is to build on this to find a way to enhance this even further. How will this be shown on film? Will it come from a scratch? Will it pour out of the model or will it gradually grow? These are things that I need to further test in test shoots next week.
