Skychild Critique

Skychild

Skychild is an art piece done by Paula Rice. It exemplifies a healthy child being held up by the skeleton of another child. I feel this piece is uplifting and shows freedom from suffering. Paula Rice is an artist who resides in Flagstaff, Arizona. Over the years she has acquired her Master in Fine Arts from the University Of Wisconsin-Madison. In 1994 she was the Associate Professor of Art in the Ceramics field at Northern Arizona University. She has created many pieces towards the Skychild series. Skychild shows different forces occurring at once such as death towards life and innocence towards evil.

I happen to love this piece. I feel it shows suffering, yet overcome and power. Almost like a birth after death. The way the skeleton is very dark and bland compared to the child flying which has color and is smiling shows a freedom or some kind of burden is lifted. A type of glaze called Raku is used. The artist wanted to get threw to the viewer the colors of children by using pinks, blues and whites in the background. There are many forms of pathos in this piece. Lots of forms of emotion is expressed, sadness from the death or skeleton of the child yet happiness from the living flying happy child.

After looking at this piece for some time and visualizing what the artist is trying to get across, I feel this piece is steered more towards a certain audience. I feel this piece would be greatly appreciated by students or people more towards art majors rather than other people. Other people may look at this piece and not see the full beauty in what the artist is trying to get at. She uses certain techniques to get across certain feelings and people who are not aware of these techniques may not understand the point wanted.