British visual artist Rachel Jones creates large abstract artworks about mouths, lips, teeth, flowers, and landscapes—the ones we see in nature and the ones we feel with our emotions. Her work has recently “disrupted art spaces” and “captivated viewers in London and collectors worldwide,” but the messages in her work are modest. In this Tate Kids ‘Meet the Artist’ video, she explains:
“You feel a lot of different things in your mouth, and your mouth is a point in your body where things go into it and things come out, and there are lots of different sensations in your mouth and textures.
“I’m interested in how to talk about what you might feel inside your body and I use teeth and lips and the mouth as a symbol for that.”
Jones also explores color in her large-scale oil pastel pieces. From Tate Kids, Try It Yourself:
“For example, lots of people might say red reminds them of anger, or yellow is happy – but what do they feel like to you? A colour could be curious, frustrated or maybe something you can’t even name!”
“The next time you make art, why don’t you think about how you can use different colours to describe emotions in a way you haven’t before? You could also put different combinations of colours together and see if they feel a particular way.”
Try it yourself with oil pastels or sticks on paper.
Then watch these videos next:
• Making Space and art with illustrator Christian Robinson
• How did Yayoi Kusama become an artist?
• How did Paula Rego decide to become an artist?
• Herman Brown is Feeling Down
• Bisa Butler: Portraits, an Exhibition Story
Plus: Mouths, teeth, and emotions.
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