Kieran Schmid

My inspiration for this piece of artwork was the painting ‘Dancing Mutants’ by Hernando R. Ocampo in 1965. Hernando was a leading radical modern artist from the Philippines and was very well known for using provocative imagery to show the harsh reality of his country, and life after the Second World War. ‘Dancing Mutants’ specifically was drawn to depict his fear for nuclear bombs and weapons, and how they would cause horrific mutations.

However, not all his paintings were controversial. Some of his paintings used powerful and lush colours to depict the beautiful vegetation and scenery of the Philippines. I was instantly drawn to his painting ‘Dancing Mutants’ because it instantly reminded me of my walks through the lush vegetation of botanical gardens, and how beautiful the green scenery was.

For my painting, I decided to use the number ‘6’ because that was how early we always had to wake up on a Saturday morning, because my grandparents liked to go to the botanical gardens when the weather was cool. When building the composition, I had the decision of either painting the branches or cutting it out with cardboard. I chose cardboard, because it really gave the painting depth and stood out from the background.

In association with the purposely ripped edges of the cardboard, I think it illustrates the ragged and imperfect branches you would find in the real world. My work tells the story of me and my grandparents waking up early in the morning, and then heading off to Botanical Gardens for a refreshing morning walk. This is represented with the number six and using the viewer’s imagination to try and seek out the hidden figures in the painting, just like in Dancing Mutants.