As someone with a lot of cuts, scars and bruises I have the desire for new skin. Skin that would cover the blemishes, protect and be like an armour. My project is based on this.
Researching the work of Eva Hesse I came across her latex work which looks like hanging skin. Therefore this inspired me to use latex as my primary material due to it's clear and flesh like qualities. Furthermore latex is used in costuming to create fake skin.
I looked at my cuts and bruises and experimented with covering these with latex. I did this by photographing the cuts and bruises on my body and face covered by small bits of latex and without. I also tried creating a cast of my arm in plaster and covering the scars by pouring latex on top of it. Furthermore I attempted to create an arm out of latex, a thin layer to go on top of my skin. However I ended up pouring the latex too thick as it was hard to cast due to the runny nature of latex. I also looked at stitches. Sewing latex together to look like stitches.
Researching skin cells I decided to create a sort of second skin armour out of latex in the sort of shape of skin cells as it covers my blemishes in patches in which they form. Inspired by chain-mail, the way it interlinks I decided to interlink little pieces of latex. I tried to fix it together in the manner of stitches by sewing them individually together however this took too much time so I used glue. This is my final piece a garment constructed by glueing tiny pieces of latex together inspired by the design of Franc Fernandez's famous Meat dress.
