The curled up woman within the corner of the piece represents both the inner and outer emotions, which the woman is experiencing at the moment she found out her loved ones had been taken away from her because of the shooting. She is clenching onto herself, holding her memories close to her, trying to grip onto herself to relieve the pain and wake up from her nightmare. She is emotionally paralyzed, her heart under strain from the pain travelling around her body. The free hand ink drawing generates a personal atmosphere, which is deeply needed as the Orlando shooting was one of the largest mass shootings by one man. Sons, daughters, partners, they were all lost within the shooting leaving family’s devastated and torn, by how they could be ripped away from them for what seemed as a night of fun at the beginning. The water colour media enhances depth and sympathy as the woman is gripping herself as what has happened is unreal that she is in pain and needs to wake herself up from the nightmare. This with the light washed colours flowing through her body that illustrate compassion and empathy.
The screaming woman enflamed highlights the reactions at the moment the attack took place. She has been enlarged as the focal point is on her and what happened that night. The scream illustrates the emotions of the victims as they were screaming for someone to help them, hoping someone would find them soon and stop the shooter from continuing; they spent their last moments fighting for air and hoping that someone soon would be able to come and save them, yet there was nothing anyone could do. The grey shading within the woman represents the feeling of being emotionless. When the shooting took place, everyone who was affected whether this be watching on the news or being in the club automatically became emotionless; realizing that one man who could not accept himself, could take the lives of 50 people. The exuberant colours within the portrait were heavily influenced by Archan Nair’s piece ‘balance’ as it emphasizes the confusion and contrast of the event that took place that day. Red is a very emotionally intense colour relating to danger and anger that exemplify the killer who took his rage out on people who were celebrating who they were. Along with red, dark blue and purple illustrate the killer’s emotions as they signify power and frustration. All of Omar’s life he had never been in control of his life as he never had power over who he liked which made him frustrated, which lead him to become a malicious killer. However, green and yellow are the colours of nature that indicate growth and freshness. Both colours characterize stability and safety yet the Orlando shooting was far from that, every body’s life was in danger and no matter where you were in the club, nobody was safe.
The colour black is a discrete colour within the lilies to represent death, this signifies the people that were in the club the night of the Orlando shooting that were either killed or experienced their own traumatic torture. The black also intertwines with mystery, which relates to the question of why the murderer did what he did, why he felt the need to walk into a club and kill people who only wanted to celebrate a fun night. Lilies have a significant meaning of death, which is why they are portraying the victims as they are the soul of the departed that have restored innocence, so the victims can rest in peace. A diversity of media’s within the lilies portrays the LGBT community as a whole, everyone is different, there are multiple sexualities becoming known to today’s society and each one is different and accepted. The acrylic black, layered with white and grey express the detail of the strokes but still combines the colours to make them realistic and highlights the different tones. Whereas on other lilies, the passionate volume of black ink produces the sketchy rough atmosphere symbolizing the death of the malicious killer as it’s ruthless and harsh. However, the lilies created from biro enhance the specific detail and delicacy as the fine lines emphasize daintiness and individuality as each lily is different, which intertwines with the victims as each identity was diverse.
The layout of the piece highlights the focal point as well as the background through the positioning and multi layers. The woman clinging to the lilies is the focal point; however, as the screaming woman in the background is filled with exuberant colours demonstrating Nair’s style, the first point of view is her as it draws the audience in as of the energetic colours. The smudged wax background is dim which highlights the curled up woman as she is full of bright warm watercolours. The woman is small and cornered as she is in a fragile state from the loss of someone she loves therefore is clenching to herself as she feels small and dainty. Whereas the screaming woman if full of anger and fury, screaming to take out all her pain and trembling to let the people around her know she is hurting in an unthinkable way.
