Kendra Harness: Deaf Artist Analysis

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People say that a picture or piece of artwork is worth a thousand words. That seems to hold true to Kendra Harness’ artwork. Kendra Harness is a deaf artist, who produced a piece of art by the name of Positive/Negative, made in 1989. Positive/Negative profoundly shows physical deaf experience, it focuses on the eyes and it includes blue and white, with one eye being in a negative format and the other not.

Positive/Negative displays deaf experience in a physical way. Displaying eyes in this piece, expresses how much of a visual language sign language is. This holds true for all different forms of sign language, not just American Sign Language. Sign language is expressed visually, by simultaneously watching what someone is signing and the emotions and gestures they’re showing. Eyes are key to a language such as this one, which is most likely why Kendra made it a part of her 3 part series known as the “Eye-Hand-Heart” series. …show more content…

Many people are visual learners. Sign language is all about visuals. People in the deaf community, as well as others who are not in it but have taken up the language, use fingerspelling, signing, expressions, and movements as well. Eyes are used fluently to help express certain words, phrases and meanings. People have said that eyes are the key to a soul. It seems that a language like this might be more meaningful than having the verbal