Student Voice Series: A Future To Be Proud Of by Vera (Year 9)
Entering The COBIS Art Contest with the theme being ‘a future to be proud of’ I knew that I would rather paint something that we as a generation, a community, would need to get rid of. We are constantly receiving things, and people are very innovative and make life easier every single day. We are flooded with all the information that we as a species have collected over thousands of years. That is doing little to help, as we are still facing problems that are very old, such as war and a general lack of empathy, so I thought about what one big thing we need to rid ourselves of would be. It is hate, and it has been hate for such a long time.
People will do things because of hate – for the hate of something or the hate of lacking something. If we could control it, and rid ourselves of it, then we would be much better off. I sat in my room, took a video of myself for inspiration and the rest came to me as I kept painting.
The background has a spiral, which I hope would represent how infinite hate can be. The creature pulling at the strings is, what I would like to imagine, as the subconscious mind, although it can be interpreted in many other ways. I used watercolours and a pen on a thin canvas, and I love how the watercolours pop out in a different way than acrylics would.
In the end, the painting turned out alright, I would have changed a few things, such as maybe the background, but for me, the message I tried to put into it is most important. I hope that people will eventually be able to control their hate. That would definitely be a future to be proud of.
