Mummified doll

I bought a blow up doll from a sex shop that is near the college. I went in with a friend. I managed to find one in the sale basket for £5. I brought it back to college. It was something that you could imagine someone taking out on a Stag do. Size wise it was just too small. I then ordered another cheap blow up doll from eBay.  This doll was 5ft tall. I wrapped it in Modrock which gave the doll a hard white plastered effect. It was the first time I had used Modrock as a material,  I found it really effective and easy to use. This now gave the doll a plain white surface to project onto.

I collected images of global iconic figures. The ones I had been brought up with, and some current ones too. I then blended my own face with those images, to present the idea that one’s own identity is very entangled with the narratives of our iconic figures.

Read more "Mummified doll"

John Powell is not Jesus

“I never cease to say and I repeat it to the world since 1977. I am not Jesus Christ, I am just an actor and British comedian. I am tired of seeing my photos displayed in places of worship and other places for worship. I just make a film for a living. Burn my picture […]

Read more "John Powell is not Jesus"

Baloons

McCarthy’s inflatable’s brought to mind an inflatable sex doll. It would be quite unorthodox for me to put something so obviously sexual in my art works.

I was feeling that such a doll would be used to project ones fantasies on.

Regarding inflatable items, there is a comical reaction that such an item brings out in us, that is interesting. I remember being given a rather large inflatable hammer (on a birthday), and I bopped strangers on the head with it, as I walked down the Kings Road in London, with friends, in fancy dress (after having had a few Vodkas).  The strangers all reacted well. I remember someone said that the only thing you can hit someone over the head with and get away with is a balloon.

Instinctively I would like to put ‘Modrock’ around a blow up doll to give it a more pleasing sculptural look to it.

I thought of putting masks on it. Making paintings of faces. But I would like to project

This has the developed into blending my own face with iconic figures from my life. Not figures I admire or like or believe in. But very iconic images of Good, Evil, Saintly, Religious, Powerful or Attractive.

Showing how identity and ones owns stories, is made from the narrative of these iconic images.

Iconic images being the linchpin to our shared mass identity, regardless of our liking and disliking of those icons.

These images I will project onto blank canvas of the dolls face.

The initial images that came where God, Jesus, Mother Theresa. Gandhi, Hitler. Donald Trump, Nelson Mandela. Marylyn Monroe and Buddha. All being huge global icons.

 

Balloons descend as Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and former US president Bill Clinton celebrate on the fourth and final night of the Democratic National Convention at Wells Fargo Center on July 28, 2016 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. / AFP / SAUL LOEB (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)
Read more "Baloons"