This was crammed for me due to a situation going on at home so I didnt have much time to come up with a new project and do very much research so I carried it on from the previous shelter project and went down the route of people being controlled. After some thinking I decided to use the concept of children being conditioned and controlled from an early age without even knowing this.
For a long time I have wondered about the type of toys specific to the gender of a child. The range is very sexist and provides a role to the child which is expected of them once they reach adulthood. It is not entirely the same now that time has progressed and the job roles of the sexes have mingled but the toys have remained the same and this is where the idea for this painting came along.
In this canvas picture it shows the huge franchise thats is partly behind what is given to children. It is a huge representation of the toy industry and it is advertised in such a way that make children ecstatic. The toys are given a magical ethos which can make the crappiest of toys seem heavenly and this is why I used this chain over any others. In front of the "Toys R us" store is Sigmund Freud wearing the giraffe suit which is the logo character of the store. Freud is holding in one hand a Barbie doll and in the other hand an Action Man.The reason that I used Freud in this image is because Freud was a hugely influencial psychologist. Especially in the way that parents raised their children. Many books that are written on child care are still today quoted from Freud theories and this is why Freud was used to represent a figure putting pressure on to people to believe what is right and wrong. Not so much now but in the past people believed that what he said was correct.
He is stood behind the two adult figures in the foreground showing how his theory has affected the way they have grown into adults in the future.
The female figure on the left shows a woman that has been conditioned by the Barbie doll. She looks slutty in Barbie glittery way and she is covered head to foot in plastic surgery lines showing how she is self conscious and aiming for the idealistic body image which is not realistic at all especially when considering Barbie's body if it were life size. She would be severly deformed.
I recognised that it was a stereotype that is not always correct because not every woman that played with Barbie is a body conscious, materialistic whore. So I looked into other aspects that can lead to this such as physical and mental abuse, The media, such as playboy magazines and other magzines constantly portraying beauty as being skinny woman with a specific style of features showing what men apparantly like which isnt always the case. And so I printed off these images and made a collage out of them along the plastic surgery lines. I also took Angelina Jolie's eyes and stuck them in the same place as the drawn womans eyes as if there is a catalogue that people can pick what features they would like and buy them.
The soldier on the right has been conditioned by the Action Man. He has taken on the role that has been acted out by the figurine...Again I can not stereotype that this is always the case and so I also added a collage to this image. Other situations that I feel could lead to this are things such as physical and mental abuse, the media also with the adverts they produce that are pro-join the army, propoganda messages, games and films and people that live on council estates who have usually had a hard upbringing are targeted as this is seen as a better way of life. Some of these people may feel they have nothing to lose and so without realising some of them are targetted.
Once I had finished this painting I didn't feel like it was complete. I felt that the image looked naive and I wasn't happy with how I had drawn the figures at the front. I felt that they looked like something I had drawn when I was a child.
To go with the image on the wall of the exhibition I also created two happy meal boxes with propoganda messagerie on them. I used the happy meal box because I know how children are hugely influenced by McDonalds. I know this becaue I know I was, and I also know that my little sister had never been there before but whenever we walked past a McDonalds she was all of a sudden hungry. This is because she had been influenced by the adverts that she had seen on the television or on billboards. I picked the happy meal box because this is what children get excited over and the bold colours all over them are appealing. Here are the two that I produced:
I also designed a packaging for the McDonalds burger, Promoting that "It's OK" Percy Pig doesn't mind having his bollocks in your burger:
Here is the painting and objects in the cavendish exhibition:
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