Field Hand with Raised Fist
These two images have been rolling around in my head for ages, they find their inspiration from an illustration that Gary Kelley did (at least) six years ago about the fall of Communism in Time Magazine, a toppled figure of Lenin was being carried by caricatured Communist workers, of the style usually found in Asian Propaganda posters. I've had the image pasted into a sketchbook for years, but never did anything with it.
When I was working on the "Flight" (commission) I was trying to adapt the image (through my own style) into an image of Margaret Thatcher as the client is Irish and had that anti Thatcher stance that I love so well, from my love of 2000 AD comics. Nothing came of those attempts, it felt one step removed from my own experience and I just can't fake that kind of thing in my work. As these two very different images suggest I started to find my own way to use the concept for my own work, the first "Field Hand" has a weight to it, that mostly comes from my love of the some what cheeky title. It almost coincides narratively with the images of flying hats that I've rendered several times in different formats (see. Lost Houses tab and the Press Club pieces). Connecting the hat of the Field Hand, I enjoy the "raised fist" pun quite a bit.
The second piece was going to be a companion (possibly a diptych) of another female worker carrying the head or another fist, I felt the content didn't make as much sense, visually as the field hand did. Instead I focused on the intimate aspect of the pose, with the woman's head affectionately leaned into the head of the statue, that she is hugging the head as she lifts it as opposed to carrying it off to be disposed, the raised and open eyes of the statue also imply an aspect of helplessness that make the piece more vulnerable than rebellious.
A.S Hahn
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