And we're back to slab building - for a moment.
Today's goal was to build a mask to serve as a piece of art to be hung on a wall. One was to have a modern design and the other to draw inspiration from traditional Sri Lankan masks.
The first idea for a modern design immediately started to form in my mind. A minimal mask - blank, smooth, modern. A textured surface, with cracks. How about a split going through the middle? Or maybe two pieces fitting together as one?
Eventually, this reminded me of the (quite cliche) idea of the sun and the moon, two sides of the same coin and forever inspiring countless humans by their duality.
I wanted to express the idea of the two being so similar yet so different by designing both pieces to be separate pieces that fit together and seem to be one from afar.
And my first mask was the sun and moon, two different personalities woven together as one. Can you guess which one is the sun?
For the traditional design, I turned to masks used in traditional Sri Lankan dance dramas, or 'Kolam'. These were lively, colorful masks that held metaphors and stories as vibrant as the dramas their characters starred in, and one such character caught my attention.
Lenchina, is a female character with an aged appearance which would still appear enticing. So the mask's original design was meant to have an older appearance of a mature woman and that of a lovely young woman at once.
This interesting concept reminded me that there was more to something than meets the eye, but, unfortunately this might have been an oversimplification of a more complex concept behind this character's design too. However, the thought still stuck with me, and I decided on a mask that showed a quite literal 'two faced' person, feigning innocence to cover up a sinister side.
This is in no way my interpretation of the character Lenchina, and is only something that gave the initial spark to my thought process that led me to create this mask...... but did this end up being an allegory for how sinister things sometimes hide behind a mask of tradition and norms to appear palatable to continue their parasitic behaviour? 🤔
That's giving myself too much credit, but it certainly made me think.
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