Retirement
A huge issue in Philadelphia and even all of the United States is poverty. Our country is experiencing vast income inequality. The image I based my artwork on shows a man sleeping next to an advertisement for early retirement. I was just struck by the contrast between someone retiring early and someone seeking out the subway for shelter.
In order to create this piece, I began by tracing the image. After tracing it, I transferred my tracing onto a linocut block. From here, I carved out the lines. After carving the lines, I realized that the man sleeping next to the column was not very aesthetically pleasing. It was hard to tell it was a man, and instead looked like some sort of amorphous being. Eventually, I would solve this issue but for now I ignored it. I then printed the linocut onto different colored pieces of paper, selecting my favorites. But on a lot of the prints my more detailed, smaller lines got filled with ink making the image lose detail. In order to fix this, I had to deepen many of my lines and use different printing techniques. After creating these prints, the best one was blown up to a larger size and printed onto the pieces of paper above. In order to solve the issue of the man not looking like a man, we overlaid an image of him onto the printout of my print. After aligning the pieces of paper in a row, I colored them in with colored pencils in order to create a sort of neon effect.
I hope that as people see this piece they understand that America is not perfect. There is a whole population of people living beneath our feet.
