Body Politics Research Post

Body Politics Sketchbook Pages

Body Politics Completed Poster

Body Politics Artist Statement

This piece was inspired by the culture in which we live where rappers relate themselves to gods and society elevates them to this status. The rapper's inflated ego has always been an established and recurring element, but recently they have begun comparing themselves to gods, believing there was no higher being that they could compare themselves to to show their greatness. This, however unfavorable, would be tolerable if it wasn't for the fact that society themselves now view them as gods as well, even while recognizing the slight comical and ridiculous air of it. At some point, society suddenly switched to worshiping these rappers in the way that the artists wanted, treating them with the same reverence, or sometimes even more, of an idolized God.

Kanye, being the most prevalent subject of this aspect of society with his Yeezus persona, then became the center of my work. By showing Kanye wearing biblical robes while employing his classic ice cream-eating pose, the viewer is prompted to think about why exactly these rappers are so elevated in society, when they are, in reality, comically ridiculous figures. The shirt works in tandem with this poster by displaying a barrage of quotes from various rappers relating themselves to the divine, so show what a truly widespread phenomenon this is. It was then styled to resemble tour date posters as well as festival lineup posters, where the most important headlining position and sizing is given to the quote that most strongly connects rap artists with gods.

Shirt Final

Body Politics Research Post

These are numerous quotes I've found relating rappers to the divine or god. I made this to look aesthetically kind of like how festival posters will make the headliner much bigger, and as the quotes relate the rap artist more closely to a god, the quote gets larger. I think I might rearrange this, however, and make the text white with just black rectangles encasing it, much like how lyrics appear online when you look them up. In addition to this, it needs something on the bottom, so I think I'll probably create a graphic of praying hands, much like appears on Drake's If You're Reading This It's Too Late album cover.

Body Politics Research Post

Lookin a little rough so far but Yeezus Eats Ice Cream ( working title I reference it by) is progressing.

Body Politics Research Post

Other religious celebrity icon inspired images I've created as prints

Body Politics Research Post-Poster Inspirations

So I started off looking at really simple designs, because I realized I liked the really graphic aesthetic compared to something more realistic, and I really like a minimal design.

But then upon exploring further and contemplating my concept more, I realized I wanted to do a portrait most likely, which led me to some more classic examples for inspiration sources.

So then I looked specifically for posters that merged the two: a portrait with a more stylized, graphic, block-color look.

So those were what I was thinking about doing as far as the style in which I create them. But then I just started researching posters relating to religion and rappers, mainly Kanye because of his Yeezus persona, and just amassed a bunch of different resources to draw from and research how others have gone about depicting these themes.

Final Project Ideas and Shirt Size

T-shirt size: X-small (or small if there's no x-small available)
T-shirt color: white


My idea for this project isn't necessarily centered around political issues, but I wanted to delve into the comparison between religion and celebrity culture, if possible. It's a really strong theme in some of my other work, as far as elevating celebrities, especially rappers, to the status of gods because they like to do so in a lot of their music anyways, and I feel like a propaganda project would be a really great way to represent this concept. I thought it would be interesting to push religion as a brand just like these rappers do with themselves, whom they relate to gods.

So that was my main idea, and beyond that I haven't really developed any others that I'm really that excited about. I toyed with doing political issues like women's rights and things like that that I believe are super important in politics, but then I'm worried whatever art I make based on that topic will just turn out looking like an old, tired, excessively-reblogged post you see posted on Tumblr or by your super militant feminist social justice warrior friends on Facebook. And I would rather avoid that, and I'm really excited about the rap gods because it's more in line with my work and it's a topic I love exploring, so I think I might go with that one.

Calligram