I am an absolute movie buff. I often try to extract some characters from the screen and bring them in our environment, unaltering their traits in an attempt to portray how their behaviour would influence people in today’s surroundings. After watching Suicide Squad, I was keen on using Joker’s abusive nature of mistreating and controlling Harley Quinn to demonstrate relationship violence.
This was a quick half an hour thing I made in my sketchbook. I started with drawing Joker’s iconic ‘The Smiles’ tattoo on his left hand.
Behind his hand, I drew the face of a distressed woman who was aggrieved at being unfairly treated by her partner. The reason why I have particularly used Joker’s hand is not only because of everyone’s vast obsession with pop culture but also because of that tattoo. It depicts how on the outside, partners make their relationship appear perfect but on the inside, it’s just the sad reality which prevails. It symbolises how one partner is forcefully ‘putting a smile on that face’ of a woman, regardless of her choice and wish.
After completion of the central character to display physical trauma, I drew various hand structures to present the mental aftereffects of mistreatment, objectification and suppression by someone close to you. The various hand gestures, starting from the top making semicircles on left and right, depict how after each touch of the hand, she feels more controlled and unwillingly possessed by someone.
Notice the transition from the open palm at the top to the closed fist at the bottom. She feels like she’s being fully controlled, influenced and subdued in the hands of someone undeserving.
The final illustration looks like this –
( Medium used – Blue ball point pen on cartridge sheet )
