NICOLA BUSHELL

My concept began from looking at photographer Jan Hoek’s work “The Sweet Crazies”. These are individuals with mental disorders that live in Ethiopia. I was inspired by the matching leatherette outfits and the laid back careless silhouette created from how they through anything on.
I moved onto exploring the mentally ill and how they lived particularly in the American asylums. This forwarded my studies into looking at Francesca Woodman’s work. She is an iconic photographer who made her status after committing suicide due to depression. “Her body seems to merge with its surroundings.” as if she wants to be subtracted or not noticed by society. This reflects back to the “The Sweet Crazies” because maybe they want the same or already feel as if they merge into civilisation. But to “sane” people they stand out. As a conclusion to her body of work I moved onto researching into wallpapers and wall coverings as a print idea. Going back to where I began with the Ethiopian community I found that they would cover their walls in scrap wrappings. However they didn’t just cover their walls but their ceilings too. The placement of the wall coverings are random leaving the blank distressed canvas behind peeking through. I then looked into Victorian and Edwardian interiors where they would also cover their interiors in matching prints. This is where I got my idea for entirely matching outfits.