Continuing my line of work in textiles, I decided to progress my art further in that direction, and, having had conversations with a variety of staff-members, came to the conclusion that my work was addressing the right thing, yet just not effectively conveying it, as anticipated.
Thus, I moved forward from the use of rubbish, whilst holding on to a few aspects of the work I found particularly poignant;
- The use of quotes directly from the service users
- The concept of exposing these in a way that makes people physically interact with the work
- Creating ambiguity as to whether the work itself actually is what it appears to present
I landed back on the T-shirt idea, whereby the concept of ‘wearing your heart on your sleeve’ is made literal. I felt that this was the most accurate way of capturing the above;
- One T-shirt would represent a service user, with the other being a testament from the therapist
- The T-shirts will be suspended from the ceiling, exhibited centrally in order to allow people to walk around them and lift the sleeves
- Viewers should ask questions regarding whether they should ever be worn
Making these seem like actual T-shirts, I have created a brand name entitled ‘TheraTees’, combining ‘therapy’ and ‘T-shirts’, with a fake selling account found at the address below:
https://wordpress.com/posts/theratees.wordpress.com
The T-shirt entitled ‘Anthony’ was so-called after one of my clients. Anthony entered the first session with a very noticeable outward appearance. With electric blue contacts in, lots of facial tattoos that hint at a previous life of gang-membership, I was instantly drawn to the way his manner was completely incongruent to the setting of his own skin. The dot of the electric blue combines his eye colour with the single dot he has on his right cheek, often signifying a previous status as a pimp. The tear drops present those on both cheeks, two on one, three on the other, stereotypically indicative of either murders carried out by the owner or murders committed against loved ones or gang members of the owner, amounting to the number present.
‘Session 5’ was a write-up of a hypothetical session a therapist would have with Anthony. I intentionally made the writing difficult to read due to the way in which a therapist is aware of lengthy times spent wiring being off-putting for the client, causing quick work. Moreover, it is not central to the front not back in order to hint at how the client may be able to often see parts of what is written, but not fully, and how the therapist may be more aware of the client than the client is of themselves.
Exhibited opposite each other, the T-shirts are meant to give an impression of conversation, with the white T-shirt of the therapist being a clean, pure slate onto which words are written; representing the mind of the therapist, and the other being black and defined by an outward appearance, not only that the therapist has to engage with in order to establish anything deeper under the surface, but also that the client now has to live with, often no longer by choice in a therapeutic circumstance.
lucyharlandart 