Paintings for the for
the Spit It Out Project's AYE CAMPAIGN
Acrylic + Digital mixed media paintings commissioned by the Scotland-based collective Spit It Out Project for the Aye Campaign on Instagram over the month of February, 2021.
The campaign was designed to expand the conversation around consent, sexuality, and mental health at the intersections of gender identity, race, LGBTQAI+ rights, sex-positivity, and social justice.
These paintings were used, one each week, to illustrate the week's themes (Aye Feel; Aye Consent; Aye Respect; Aye Fuck; Aye Stand).
Many valuable resources and conversations are featured on the Instagram page.
Aye. Feel.
(Text by Nisan Yetkin for the first week of the Aye Campaign)
Feel it transform into a mass of splinters and steam. Reel in the good and the bad; rotten seeds, and blossoms alike. And see the tortured me become a sunbeam; a wonderful gleam among many others on the sunny surface of the ocean. That is the thing about life. It demands you to feel.
I have been a stingray and a mollusc. I've been in the deep sea, but now I'm gasping for air. I'm no longer an octopus: I'm fully human now. Flaws, feelings, joys, hatreds. All is here. All is here.
I might cry.
Aye. Feel.
I feel my feet touch the ground after millennia of disconnection. I embrace my glorious emotion: the revival of a soul once lost.
Resuscitate joy, pleasure, connection: my treasure.
I have been a tiger and a mole. I've been in jungles and deserts. Now all I crave is the water of life. Abuses come in so many forms that it's hard to discern one from the other. But I'm no longer a mere mammal. I'm fully human now; rights, claims, rebellion. All is here. It's all in my heart.
It's time to laugh out loud.
Aye. Feel.
