Sharpe Arts

Bones

             

        During the 2014/2015 school year I was enrolled at the Haliburton School of the Arts in the Visual and Creative Arts Diploma program, also known as VCAD. Here, in my concept development class, I spent my time working with the bones of deer hunted by my family the past year. These bones were left in the sun to be bleached and eaten away by small animals, originally meant to return into the earth. They were collected by my father at my request and put towards this series, focusing around death, entitled Bones. This series of small bone sculptures look at beliefs behind death in various cultures. In these pieces I symbolize various death rituals, coping techniques, and reactions to death, and introduce the reality of death to children or younger audiences. The different materials used create a conflict between peace and despair. Paints, inks, pastels, fabrics, beads, wire, and alteration of the bones, through burning, or other means, all added to the viewer’s preconceived ideas of what these actions mean. In this way, any piece in the bone series could have multiple meanings to the viewer depending on many aspects on the individual’s life.  This series has been an introduction into the realms of three dimensional work, abstraction, and implied meaning for me, which I plan to continue forward with in my later works.