By reflecting on the images that I had made in the past couple of weeks, I came to the conclusion that this image was most successful at illustrating how I wanted to present gender: as something abstract, fluid and separate from physical appearance due to the abstract 'shadow' of the person which represents gender/ inner self. I got some peer feedback from Phoebe to test if the communication of this image was successful. This helped to highlight some aspects of this image that I hadn't noticed before such as the importance of the contrast between the greyscale and colourful aspects of the image.

To develop this image, I decided to use a similar concept but combine it with more collage from different sources of media throughout time which have helped to enforce society's rigid opinion of gender to help show the intensity and power of this influence. 

I layered media in the background of imagery from the 50s/60s showing stereotypical roles of men and women, cut outs from 90s magazines, magazines from today, images of Barbie and Ken all to show the amount of layers and intensity of stereotype around gender in the media. I think this is successful as the increased amount of collage adds a sense of chaos and high intensity. I added some drawing into the background which I am questioning whether or not it is successful. It could communicate how even with the gender binary and stereotypes being so strong, a free attitude to gender away from this has always existed but just been hidden, or, it could be too distracting from the drawing in the centre and could make the contrast between the background and foreground not strong enough. On reflection I think the added drawing in the background is a positive addition as I want my work to communicate that there has always been rebellion against these stereotypical ideas, and I think as it somewhat covers the collage this could suggest that ultimately truth and freedom of gender is more powerful than the rigid ideas that restrict it. The drawing in the foreground was inspired by the collage above. The aim was to create a universal figure and then show the complexity of their gender through a shadow/ silhouette filled with abstract automatic drawing meant to represent gender. Out of the collages that I have done so far, this element of having the figure and then a drawing as a silhouette behind is the most effective at conveying the idea of gender, gender being complex, and gender not being a visible thing. To develop this I plan to create further iterations of this element. I am also keen to reintroduce using a hand to suggest control and I am thinking of combining collage from the media into a hand shape to highlight the control of the media.