“Happy to Help”
with my more recent project on text i was looking at the phrase ‘happy to help’. i wanted my art work to reflect the irony of that statement and really make the viewer think of the setting the phrase is placed over. Initially i had the idea of how its commonly associated with helping someone in need and to me a cliche image would be an upset of even depressed person, with the view of someone offering their assistance and saying they are, ” happy to help”. When in actually fact why would someone be “happy”, in the literal sense, to see someone, potentially a friend, upset and in need of help.
However this didn’t carry as much weight as the south Sudanese civil war i knew and studied over the past few years and i immediately had an image of a child soldier, who in his mind thought he was helping his family and friends for his cause but in reality was jeopardising his life as just a small child.
The style i was looking at was a play on the style of the Supreme logo which is an iconic expensive clothing company that uses Futura bold italic and has made it a globally iconic font, with connotations of wealth and exclusivity adding to the irony. This however reminded me of Barbara Krugers work which has lead me to where i am
Barbara Kruger was infamous for her work using slogans over black and white photos in a similar font, Helvetica Bold italic, using red as a means of drawing attention to the poster. In my screen print i was limited to two layers of colour and only used red as the base layer and then opaque white as the second layer, but the principle remains with the work of using a slogan or phrase and combining it with an image to either shock or bend the meaning of the phrase. I tried to use subtleties like the font to have implications of dark irony as well as the hand painted text of “to Help” place over the Kalashnikov rifle as well as being done so in a scratchy loose manner suggesting a sense of fear or something to be wrong. As this image of this little boy being armed and send of to ‘help his cause’ with his real means of help is through using his rifle.
Barbaras Krugers work
Barbara Krugers addresses controversial political topics such as feminism as well as other social, economic and cultural issues. she overlays a black and white image with bold clear fonts making them easy to read and interpret but often showing a controversial message. My piece works with a dark irony using the phrase “happy to help” whilst conveying multiple subtle messages that can be disregarded or just missed, whilst also producing an aesthetic piece of art work, and i felt happy with this piece but i was unsure with the placement of “Happy” as well as the layering of colours as well as wether i used hand printed text or photoshop text. However, regardless i really want to take silk screen printing further and develop it in the future.
Harry Toller 