Naivety, Awareness, Freedom of Speech- Led and Charcoal on paper 2011. Elizah Caruana

This artwork was created under the pretense that hands are the leading point to our communications. We learn to touch be for we can communicate every other way, this piece explores the pattern in which we learn to communicate at birth and suggests it’s not just a medical thing, that the reason we touch before we can see and speak is a pattern of self-evolution, as we progress through Naivety (mute image one) Awareness (sight image two) and Freedom of Speech (Evolved image three). We master the ability to touch and feel before we are able to see, then, we view the world in its true beauty before we can make judgement (speak), which kind of plays on the concept that judgement, or voicing opinions to early blurs the visual reality of the world. Our hands put action to everything we think or plan, (you can plan all you want, but it’s all a waste of time if you don’t put them to action).  They also are us in our rawest state, you can change your clothes, hair colour, get Botox, even wear contacts to change your eye colour, but your hands are unchangeable. They reflect your age, your hard work (calluses and cuts) and perhaps even map out our futures. By positioning hands behind other crucial communicating elements, this work says that before appreciation or understanding of touch is developed, other communication methods are redundant.  What hands do and say on their own takes precedence over what might come out of one’s mouth or what one might see. Actions speak louder than words, touch holds the strongest emotive power and is something that is universally understood around the world. These portraits were done by hand, as sketches, and completely identifiably me, using a media of led and charcoal on paper.

Perhaps I should pick up that pencil and get back into my art!