With the crit approaching I decided I wanted to creative a work that immersed the viewer and created a conversation for change. This meant that my work had to be big, it had to leave an impression. I decided to work on a continuation of my cigarette ordering piece. But that piece had multiple problems. The most prominent issues where the scale of the piece, it was much to small to achieve my goal of being overwhelming. It was redundant and didn't make anyone think, very easy to pass over. Another issue was it was unbelievably disgusting and smelly. I cant change peoples minds or start a conversation if the work is too smelly to get close enough to see. Even when I got too close it made me gag. And while that side is a really interesting quality and nod to the works nature, it closed off room for contemplation. Because who would want to get close and explore that work? That's when I decided to recreate the cigarettes through painting. Painting the cigarette butts raised their status from poverty and disgusting litter to a symbol of pollution that could be easily received. I painted a portion of my ordered cigarette page and then repeated it over and over to create a huge wall sized piece. My room size and health at the time limited the overall scale of the final piece. I made it as big as I could from my room ( I was bed bound at the time) But now I'm improving my plan is to make the piece so big its completely immersive. I would like to fill a whole room instead of a single wall, like wallpaper.
