Final Screen Print

My A3 prints will use the photograph of the three young men sitting against the skate park wall, which I used earlier in my digital mixed media experiment.  When I created the original photograph I found the three young men’s appearance intimidating. I approached them because I wanted to challenge my perceptions, and the interaction was ultimately positive.

The experience of approaching these young men, and others inspired an interest in how society perceives risks to personal safety and how that perception differs between genders. My research led me to Stevens et al. of Cambridge University, who interrogated the anecdotal public perception of the differences in male and female perceptions of security threats. In their findings, which, for clarity, dealt with greater issues than the mere perception of threat to personal safety, it was acknowledged that “men identify fewer threats but are more likely to favour aggressive responses to address those threats than women” (Stevens et al. 2021).

In an earlier study by Sherry Hamby and Amy Jackson, in 2010, into differences in perceived risk of dating violence between male and female university students, Hamby and Jackson found that their results aligned with pre-existing public opinion that females perceive greater risk from violence than males. Still, they dismissed the idea that the source of female negative risk perception was based on gender stereotyping.  “Because males are stronger and bigger than females, it appears that gendered perceptions of violence are based on real-world knowledge of gender differences, not merely gender stereotypes (Hamby and Jackson, 2010).

Aligning my printed work with the concepts of gender and risk perception and the triangle as an indicator of gender, I planned to overlay the halftone mono print of the young men with downward-oriented triangles. I would colour the triangles in an approximation of International Kein Blue because of its association with Klein’s controversially sexist series Anthropometries, and with the contrasting work of  Helena Almeida that criticises the patriarchy of the 1950s

The choice of medium, screen printed design on paper, took inspiration from the aesthetics of Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol’s work, and the activism of Keith Harding’s, particularly his work with triangles in his campaigns for AIDS awareness and support.

The results from applying the triangle halftone to the screen-printed photograph.

The initial results, using two halftone layers were not to my liking. The dots from the two layers created a moiré effect. Additionally, the triangles were not opaque enough to obscure the faces of the young men. I wanted to triangles to prevent the identification of the individuals and to express their identity as a gendered object.

The final print obscures the identities of young men. The blue colour and the orientation of the triangles denote gender. Furthermore the specific colour choice, International Klein Blue, reflects the controversial gender-based degradation applied by Klein in the 1950s

BBC, 2016. The woman who painted her body for artist Yves Klein[viewed 16/11/2024]. Available from: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-37632356

KLEIN, Y., 1960. Untitled Anthropometry [viewed 16/11/2024]. Available from: https://www.yvesklein.com/en/archives/index?sb=_created&sd=desc&s[]=1#/en/archives/view/artwork/16802/untitled-anthropometry?s[]=1&sb=_created&sd=desc

GRUEN, J., 1992. Keith Haring: The Authorized Biography. Simon and Schuster

HAMPSON, E., S.M. VAN ANDERS and L.I. MULLIN, 2006. A female advantage in the recognition of emotional facial expressions: test of an evolutionary hypothesis. Evolution and Human Behaviour, 27(6), 401–416

HAMBY, S., A. JACKSON, 2010. Size Does Matter: The Effects of Gender on Perceptions of Dating Violence. Sex Roles 63, 324–331

STEVENS D, S. BULMER, S. BANDUCCI and N. VAUGHAN-WILLIAMS, 2021. Male warriors and worried women? Understanding gender and perceptions of security threats. European Journal of International Security. 2021;6(1):44-65.