Actions Speak Louder Than Words Maude White Analysis

“Actions speak louder than words” is an important theme that speaks throughout my artwork, “James 1:22” (fig 1). It’s a moral and righteous way of living that I have struggled to grasp fluently yet ironically, an ideal way of fulfilling my God-given purpose in life which is to encourage and help people as much as I can, another significant theme present in my thematic artwork. This need of mine to fulfil my purpose is represented in the foreshortening¹ of the portrait’s arm so as to clearly make the outstretched hand the focal point of the artwork as an outstretched hand is a universal symbol of helping to “uplift” others. The use of a portrait in my artwork is greatly influenced by Sanell Aggenbach’s artworks particularly that of the prime objective and subject matter of her “2008-2011 artworks” (fig 2 and

But after seeing Maude White’s “You Were Wild Here Series” (fig 4) and how minimalistic and liberated the white cut paper was against the black background, the words appeared too complex and clustered on my artwork, distracting other elements in my art composition that are so vitally important. So I decided to make the words the background of my artwork so that not only can my artwork be more eye-friendly to the viewer but that the words themselves can be recognised better and further enhance the artwork by means of emotionally helping people who view my artwork. I also decided to take the teddy bear “doodles” out as there was already a lot happening in my artwork and the teddy bears would’ve been an easy giveaway as to what the artwork represented in terms of tandem, thus contradicting the secrecy that the artwork