Sullivan Students Represent the Animals of India

As one of many truly inspired art projects at Sullivan, Joanne W. (former graduate) and Paramdeep B.(Grade 10) collaborate to paint Paramdeep’s face with images representing the animals of India.

The face painting series was a 48 hour collaboration on the part of the model and artist. Over four days, Param's face was transformed into a lion, dolphin, peacock and elephant; animals of cultural significance to India. The design motifs were inspired from South Asian temple figures and traditional textile patterns. The dolphin peacock and elephant photographs will be displayed at the Surrey Art Gallery in May 2013 as part of the South Asian youth focused exhibition, "The Princess Myth".

Param writes:
The whole idea started when I proposed the idea that I want to have peacock inspired art painted on my face for my media 10 photo shoot project. Meanwhile, Mr.Pelech’s other students were working on a south Asian series. So we came up with the idea that I would be painted as four different animals: a tiger, a fish, a peacock, and an elephant, for the south Asian series. I was already in the series, but we thought this would be a nice addition to it.  These four animals define India and play a role in south Asian culture, so it was a perfect fit.

The tiger is the national animal of India, Its respected in India for its strength and grace, culturally the tiger represents strength in south Asian  cultures like Sikhism. The peacock is the national bird of India. They symbolize grace, pride and beauty, They are a sign of joy for all who see them and they are often used in Indian mythology. The dolphin in ancient eastern Indian mythology symbolizes transformation and creation. This is observed in the ancient flood myth in which Vishnu (a Hindu god) transformed himself into a dolphin to save the world from a great flood. Lastly, the elephant  in India came to symbolize the god of warriors, at one point in time they were trained and used as weapons for war. The elephant is the totem of the greatest warriors, denoting royalty, inner strength and nobility.

Our artist was Michele Miguel, an art student from Emily Carr. She did an amazing job of incorporating  sandstone designs, details and patterns commonly used in India. She used colours and amazing technique. It was a long, hard,  time-consuming process , we all arrived at 8am and left around 9:30pm. The process took about 10-12 hours. My job was to portray the animals’ importance in south Asian culture and what the animals are like ,  i also had to make  sure that every angle of the art was visible and looked good. Michelle’s job was to paint every single detail, which was definitely hard, and stressful.

Artist: Michele Miguel
Photos: Joanne W. (former graduate)
Model: Param B. (grade 10)