Paper Skins

The physical properties of paper are integral to this Paper Skins triptych; its flexibility, thinness, vulnerability and fragility work as metaphors for skin. Through a process of drawing, assemblage and installation, I reveal, conceal and explore the feminine body, its skins and the spaces we inhabit. The first ‘skin’ covers our bodies, the second ‘skin’, clothing, conceals our bodies and the third ‘skin’, home, protects our bodies.
In this triptych, interchanged body parts of 'black' and 'white' skinned figures create ‘hybrid paper dolls’, which were dressed and undressed, playing with notions of the body as a site of gendered and identity experience; thus exploring the body as a metaphor for the inherent fragility and transient nature of human existence.
These interventions with the body, the home and history are part of my ongoing engagement with the discourse about identity, displacement through migration, gender, race, and neglected feminine (hi)stories.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © LAURYN ARNOTT
Image: Paper Skins triptych (-assemblage/ instillation / wall mounted with magnets)
Charcoal and pastel drawing on collaged newspaper and Canson paper, 250 gsm
In this triptych, interchanged body parts of 'black' and 'white' skinned figures create ‘hybrid paper dolls’, which were dressed and undressed, playing with notions of the body as a site of gendered and identity experience; thus exploring the body as a metaphor for the inherent fragility and transient nature of human existence.
These interventions with the body, the home and history are part of my ongoing engagement with the discourse about identity, displacement through migration, gender, race, and neglected feminine (hi)stories.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © LAURYN ARNOTT
Image: Paper Skins triptych (-assemblage/ instillation / wall mounted with magnets)
Charcoal and pastel drawing on collaged newspaper and Canson paper, 250 gsm