Where I Sleep

Zoe, Year 14

  • Painting
  • Oil on canvas
  • 1430(w) 1390(h) 0(d) mm

This painting took inspiration from James Mollison's book, 'Where Children Sleep' as well as Martha Rosler's 'House Beautiful' photomontage's. I wanted to compare the privileges and safety of children within their home, by polarising my younger sister against a background of a child speaking on a news broadcast, from a Syrian refugee camp. By having her back turned to the screen, I aim to portray the obliviousness of sheltered children in the western world, to the traumas of those put at risk through war. With my sisters body being clothed in a draped white shirt and her head covered by a face mask, the idea of bedtime is on the horizon; The shadowed portrait behind her feels ghostly and rejected. Within my work, I like to explore juxtapositions in subject and image in order to evoke a sense of inequality.