Artist Statement
I developed my concept by first deciding what color scheme and aesthetic I wanted to communicate within my work. Eventually, I decided on 1950’s, focusing primarily on reds and analogous colors such as beige and orange. Then, I did research on what ads (primarily from makeup and magazine ads) from this time period looked like, and found that they were composed primarily of headshots of women with bobbed haircuts and flared dresses, where the product is secondary to the women’s faces and/or reaction to the product. I utilized these tactics in my poster.
After deciding that I wanted to use the theme of adaptability in my Diversity project, I used a camel in a mascara ad, and related this back to camels having a double set of eyelashes to keep sand out of their eyes in the desert. This was supposed to be reminiscent of Joe Camel in the position of the product (long, cigarette-shaped mascara brush) as well as the “mascot” herself. I played off of the adaptability prompt in relation to evolutionary adaptation in animals, as well as commercialism and how animals are often used as mascots in media and ads in order to sell people objects, even if these objects are detrimental to the animals the mascots are saying they represent. (I’d also be lying if I said I didn’t really want to draw a camel in lipstick and a wig.)
I adopted 1950s posters’ strategy mostly in relation to the commercialized side of the 1950s; the idealized (or in my work, ironically skewed) set of facial features combined with perfect hair and period-appropriate makeup and dress, the product in question diminutive by comparison.
My piece works as a cultural object and artistic expression on multiple levels, both by satirizing the objectification and sexualization of women in media in the past and present, and by bringing it home by playing off of the familiar visage of Joe Camel.
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