Problems with Blogger - Link to new blog

I ended up having problems using Blogger and created a new blog using Wordpress. Here is the link to my new blog:






www.judyoriordan.wordpress.com

Artists - Research

I've been looking at the following artists:

Ai Wei Wei

Ana Teresa Barboza

Richard Billingham

Christian Boltanski

Louise Bourgeois

Adam Fuss

Leon Golub

David Wojnarowicz

Jenny Holzer

Margaret O'Brien

Nancy Spero

Timorous Beasties

Kara Walker

Wallpaper of Silhouettes

I am also working on an image of silhouettes. I want to create a wallpaper of domestic scenarios - if you look at it from a distance you will think it's a floral normal type wallpaper, but to look at it closer you will see that it's not all that it seems. This is what I'm starting with. Again, work in progress:

Will update as I go along

Stitching

I really wanted to work with stitching as it is usually thought of as a woman's craft, and wanted to do it with a twist by using quotes from men regarding their abuse.

I'm working on a cross stitch piece. Here are some photos of it, but still work in progress.

Report on the National Study of Domestic Abuse

I worked on the report on the National Study of Domestic Abuse 2005 - this was the most recent report I could access. It was compiled by the National Crime Council in association with the Economic & Social Research Institute (ESRI).

The findings on this report really surprised me! It was reported that 6% of men suffer severe domestic abuse. That is on average of 1 in 17 men.

I wanted to work with these figures. Domestic life can be represented by images of houses. My idea is to work with images of houses, 17 in total. I want to keep 16 of the houses in black & white, while keeping 1 in a bright colour.


Here are some of my images:

 

 

 

 

 

 

I want to be able to present the 17 houses in a cluster or in rows. I'm still working on this at the moment and will upload more info as I go along.

 

New Project

Start of 3rd year and another project.

I started looking at people who were unable to communicate / express themselves and are open to abuse and violence. The elderly, children, the disabled, men and women. There are various types of abuse: verbal, physical, psychological and emotional.


I started looking at domestic abuse. Shockingly 1 in 5 women in Ireland who have been in a relationship have been abused by a current or former partner (O'Connor, M, & Kelleher Associates, Making the Links, Women's Aid, 1995). National Research by the National Crime Council found that 1 in 7 women have experienced severe abusive behaviour. Internationally at least 1 in 3 women, up to one billion women, have been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in their lifetimes (Ending Violence against Women, L. Heise, M. Ellsberg, M. Gottemoeller, 1999).
Statistics Information


I started looking further into domestic abuse against men. This is less documented. In my research I came across some helpful websites:

Amen - a support and information service for male victims of domestic abuse

The National Office for the Prevention of Domestic, Sexual and Gender-based violence

A Voice for Men

Men as Victims

Hidden Hurt

The Observer News Article

Help for Abused Men

I spent quite some time researching and working on men's own testimonies. What I focused on initially was the use of implements that women used on their partners:

Kettles of boiling water
Baseball bats
Scissors
Hair straighteners
Baking implements
Drumsticks
Irons
Drills
High heeled shoes
Candlesticks
Pokers

I wanted to create a wallpaper from images of these implements.

 

 

Here is the wallpaper image I created:

 

 

My aim is to screen print this onto material to create curtains out of them. I also want to print this image onto men's shirts. I aim to also work on top of these images on the shirts by cutting and stitching text.

 

Images to follow.

 

Artist Michael Mararians

Came across this artist. Love it!! Check him out

Artist Michael Mararians