Masks explained and evaluated.

My idea for fmp started with the exploration of face transplants and the moral issues behind them, such as with one girl who tried to commit suicide by shooting herself in the head, however for some reason the bullet ricocheted off her face leaving her alive, but with some serious facial injuries. Due to the severity of her face injuries she was given a face transplant, however this caused some commotion within society as people were coming forward and saying that she did not deserve a face transplant and a second chance as she was trying to take her own life. This immediately caught my interest as it’s a story that clearly divides opinions. Furthermore, this idea of a face transplant and a new identity caused me to consider the idea of masks and how then can be used as a new face/identity. When researching masks, I continually came across the notion that the essence of a mask, specifically in African Tribal culture, if that of protection and that the wearer of the mask is merely the accessory to the mask, and not the other way around. This idea of protection with a new, artificial identity, caused me to consider Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), more commonly known as split personality disorder. This is because DID usually stems from a severe childhood trauma and the new personality is formed as a way of protection from the trauma and the memories. Thus I decided that I wanted to make some masks, each with a different personality and identity.

So far these are the each one of the masks I’ve made, with an explanation:

With this mask I was trying to mimic a face transplant, however with very few actually in existence it was a struggle as my research was limited. Making this mask I came across a few physical challenges as I used silk clays which I had ordered online, however they were from a childs play set so the amount and colours in which I had was little, hence the lack of variety within the colour. It was also very hard to blend the clays so I had a small to no chance of creating my own variations. Continually, because I didn’t actually have very much clay to use I couldn’t have covered the whole mask with the silk clays so had to prioritise the main part of the face and then cut the uncovered parts of the mask off. Although I did this to overcome a physical challenge, I ended up quite liking the fact that the mask isn’t a coverage of the whole face and that when wearing it, some of the wearers actual face is visible because I feel that that emphasises that underneath the mask/face transplant the wearer/recipient is unchanged.

         

This mask I made in a sculpture workshop and it was a starting point for my project. At the beginning of the workshop I wasn’t really too sure what to make and how to make it so I picked up some clay and just started to play around with some shapes and materials. A shape that came to mind with regards to the clay was the mask from the Phantom of the Opera as it only covers half of the Phantom’s face in order to conceal his deformity. Using that as a starting point I made this mask with the overall idea of concealing in mind. I used the black mesh as through its semi-transparancey I felt that it had connotations of being only semi, not fully, revealing.

Physically, making this mask was a challenge as trying to find a way to stick all of the materials together without breaking the clay was not easy because not many glues will stick fabric to wet clay. I managed to wet the back of the clay enough that I could rub the mesh into it which worked really well due to how porous the mesh is by its nature. Another problem was trying to get the chicken wire and the coloured glass to stay in the clay whilst it dried, especially the chicken wire as it kept bending out in the wrong direction. Furthermore, as I hadn’t used much clay, when it dried it was very fragile and cracked through the middle, which I managed to overcome using loads of PVA glue.

I don’t foresee this mask being worn as it technically won’t be able to fit on a face due to its shape and materiality. As a stand alone piece I am fairly pleased with its outcome as it does point towards an idea of concealing, however I think that I could’ve developed it further and made it better by making it possible for it to be worn, as with nothing to conceal such as a face, it does not really fulfil its purpose.

 

This mask I also made in the sculpture workshop. I made it out of an old sieve and some rope that I found in the skip. Originally I had planned on embroidering a more realistic face onto it using bold colours in a continuous line drawing format, similar to a Fred Hatt drawing, however this proved difficult and unappealing, so I changed my tact and went for a more expressive, experimental form. 

(not really sure why the writing turned red, and it wont let me change it, so I guess it’s staying).

To me this mask has electric connotations, by that I mean that it looks and feels like its electrified and static due to the use of colour and straight jaggered line.

This is another mask that I don’t envisage being worn but has it owns qualities as stand alone piece of salvaged material.

With the rest of the sieve I made this:

Originally my reason for making this was to try and recycle the found materials I had, but as I was making it and now, I see it as a spin off to my masks as the rope loosely resembles hair on the outer ring of the sieve, which creates an overall look that is somewhat human. This relates to my masks as the area where the face would be is blank, forcing the question of whether this piece is unfinished or, alternatively, one might say that the blank space creates food for thought as there are so many possibilities of what could fill the space that it is almost more beneficial to allow the viewer to create an idea in their own mind of what should be filling the space.

Furthermore, both of these sieve pieces, are physically quite harmful due to the sharp wiry bits around the edges. I tried to minimise this as much as possible however I couldn’t get rid of all of the dangers. This made me think of Mona Hartoum as some of her work, for example the Wheelchair, is made with the intention of being deceptively physically painful. This forces an interesting idea that the masks are superficially there for protection of some sort, however are actually more damaging than they seem on the surface. This is a comment on how people do put on metaphorical masks to protect themselves and their vulnerability from the world daily, even though doing this may bring about more harm to themselves as putting up a front, and not being fully yourself can cause issues long term.

 

 

   

    

Before I even started making masks I was watching on the BBC called ‘Glow Up’, it’s a reality tv competition between 10 of UKs best amateur makeup artists and on it these two looks really caught my attention as the meaning behind their look were a commentary on how people can paint on a happy, energised self but underneath that facade its a completely different story. This resinated with me quite a lot as I feel I can relate to that, so when it came to making some masks this sprung to mind immediately. I cut out parts of the mask so that when its worn the wearers face is very much visible, and I plan on painting the wearers face plain white so seems bleak in comparison to the vibrant colourful mask on top.

For this mask I used Pro Marker pens, which I have always loved however as an attempt at development from the previous colourful mask I don’t think it has been very successful. This is because it almost feels like a step backwards in experimental terms. It would almost make more sense if this mask came before the other colourful one and the other one was a development of this one. But alas that is not the case.

I was really trying to work out where the facial contours are and should be for this mask as well as trying to avoid having it look like I was attempting 100% accuracy with the symmetry as a real human face isn’t completely symmetrical anyway, and I think in that respect I was partially successful as most of the contours I drew are seemingly correct, but some of my colours are a bit wrong. The problem with Pro Markers is that they have the tendency to bleed in colour and blend into others meaning that my lines weren’t as crisp and sharp as I would have liked.

This mask was one of the first that I made. I used old makeup from years and years ago that I’ve been hoarding at home, so it was good to finally put it to some use…! For this mask I was going for a more drag queen look than a polished and perfected makeup look and in that regard I think I was successful due to the amounts of makeup I slapped on. Furthermore, I added some quite thick fake eyelashes with PVA glue which I also think adds a good effect as it makes it more realistic, which actually, some people have commented on saying how creepy it is.

To go with this mask in the performance video I am due to make tomorrow I bought a black bob wig with a fringe (think Mia Wallace from Pulp Fiction but cheaper and tackier), as I think when worn by a guy that the wig and mask will work well together to produce a drag experience

   

This sad clown mask is a loose development of the previous drag mask. This is because at the time I was thinking about doing another makeup mask but making it look more dishevelled and dirty than the first. I changed my mind and did a sad clown instead because at the time I wanted to have a broader range of masks to help inspire and influence my next moves.

As a part of my research I was looking into Claude Cahun’s work and came across some some of their (‘their’ being that Claude calls themselves neuter) work that seems to involve an idea of clowning with the painted on hearts and idealised themes of love and happiness, which in my opinions is the warped essence of a clown. This made me think of a clowns facade and how they paint on their smiles as it’s their job to be happy, and so I thought that a contrast from the classic clowns facade to what might really be behind the mask, but in this case, on the mask, an interesting point of view.

I enjoyed painting this mask despite at the beginning struggling to mix the correct colours. Despite of this I don’t think this mask was hugely successful as it’s not particularly experimental and I don’t see many ways in which I could take this mask further, unless I were to cut it up and piece it back together with stitching to add to the damaged look.

 This mask was a quick experimental one to see how paint heavy brush strokes and thick paint would sit on the material of the mask. In

evaluation, the paint went on and dried very well just as I had hoped it would.

 

The starting point for these two masks was this drawing:

 

I did this randomly just trying to explore the ideas in my head as at that time it seemed to be quite often that I’d have an internal battle with myself, hence the demon on your shoulder. This drawing I developed further to portray a demon and an angel as I wanted to create a more balanced scenario.

I wanted both characters to appear quite menacing and dark in my drawing as I felt that was what was going on in my head.  I wanted the angel mask to be quite ambiguous and not necessarily obviously an angel. This was a few reasons, one being that it made it less cliche and another being that a lot of times the good is not always the most prominent or obvious thing so to make the angel slightly unknown seemed to me to be the most fitting.

I used white feathers for the angel as the colour white is associated with purity and innocence, and feathers have connotations of being light and aloof; such as an angel. Moreover, the I used red snakeskin for the devil because red is the colour of promiscuity and maleficence, and snakeskin as the snake in the genesis creation story is what tempts Eve to eat the fruit. To make the horns and the chin I used the left overs of my silk clays from my face transplant mask as I knew I’d be covering them so the colours of the clay did not matter.

I think these masks as developments from my drawings and with my drawings as a whole, were successful as they filled the vision I had in my head. However, I think they could’ve been better if I had made them from scratch and not used the mask templates as they are more limiting to a particular shape thus restricting creativity.

 

      

For this mask I was exploring elements of cubism, such as that of Picasso and Braque as it goes without saying they are two of the most key pioneers of the cubist movement. I wanted to make a mask that appeared multi faceted and exaggerated whilst also in keeping with the element of identity because I felt the many different facets could be suggestive of different sides to a personality, similar to split personality disorder which is where my project sort of began.

Before I decided to spray it fully black and it was just cardboard looking I felt it needed more so originally I thought that to colour it in skin tone colours in accordance with where the shades might’ve been on an actual face, however when I tried this soft pastel crayons it didn’t really work as the colours where too faint on the cardboard surface so then I attempted to use blue tones but again they just looked really weak so I problem solved by realising that I needed some more paint based product, but I wanted a full even coverage and so spray paint was be the best option. I chose black because it was the colour that would most mask the cardboard’s identity as cardboard and make it appear as some other more expensive material. This in a sense is a mask on a mask as the spray paint acts as the mask, or protection to the cardboard from a potential materiality snobbery.

 

 

           

This mask was inspired by William Cobbings ‘The Kiss’. I made it using plaster and bits of porous material.

For this mask to come into fruition it needs two people to be wearing it, thus this mask is about togetherness and the feeling of being bound to another person emotionally and mentally, however portrayed physically as I feel that physicality of being joined speaks volumes about the connection between two people. For example the fact that wearing this mask is physically awkward helps to create a sense that the bounding relationship between two people can be awkward and uncomfortable at times, but is still something in which people endure as it is widely considered that to have a connection with someone, despite its difficulties, is better than to have no connection at all, i.e. being alone.

I think that this mask is one of my more successful and experimental ones as I feel it fulfils its purpose of showing the awkwardness of a bond through use of material. Moreover, to develop this mask further I could try to join more than just two masks, as well as creating more issues for the wearer such as the angles in which it should be worn. To experiment more I could also play around with colours and materiality.

 

     

This mask I also made using plaster, and is loosely inspired by Hannibal Lecter’s mask.

Having never actually seen the Hannibal Lecter movies I wasn’t making any sort of comment or statement about the characters or the movie itself, but I wanted to make something that had an uneasy, chilling feel to it which I think is greatly helped by the plaster as its colour and appearance is far from ascetically pleasing or ‘pretty’ so that worked well to promote my idea.

The depth behind this mask lies within the need or want for an immoral person such as Hannibal, to cover their face and be hidden from the world and their victims. Thus this is another form of protection provided by the mask, even if this is protection of the bad rather than the good, attaching negative connotations to this mask. I find the need/want of someone consciously doing something very wrong such as murder, to cover their identity an interesting area of thought as it almost seems they are using the mask to be a persona of evil and to strike fear into whoever sees it, instead of using their own face as a device. In this instance the mask is not only a protection aid for the wearer, it also works in reverse in that it creates a feeling of danger in the onlooker.