Lara Cawthra

My artwork is based on a painting called Dancing Mutants created in 1965 by Hernardo R. Ocampo. He was a Filipino artist who painted many abstract artworks. This particular piece was his reaction after watching a documentary about the atomic bombs in WWII. This particular atomic bomb was dropped in Hiroshima in Japan in 1945, and destroyed 3/4 of the city. I was drawn to the bold, bright, colourful shapes, and once I was shown the hidden picture included in it - the figure dancing through the flames in the middle - I was immediately captivated. I took inspiration from the red and green elements and included them into my own piece. I painted rings around the center to imitate the radiation from a bomb, and the blocks scattered around represent buildings in its path. I added the numbers V82 (Victor 82) because that was the radio code used for the plane (Enola Gay) that dropped the bomb. The most challenging part about creating my artwork was maintaining precision when hand painting the circles. The most successful element was the blending of the colour gradient of the circles, which evokes arising panic in the viewer.

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