We Removed The Skin From World Leaders’ Faces To Look Behind What Separates Us
New artwork series explores how little separates Donald Trump, Xi Jinping, Malcolm Turnbull, and other world leaders.
A shocking series of portraits explores what a range of world leaders would look like if their skin was removed.
Titled “One Millimeter”, the artworks are designed to make the viewer think about looking past the colour of skin, ethnic background, gender, or political belief.
We are all members of the same race - the human race. And we should all treat each other with respect.
In a time dominated by US President Donald Trump’s divisive rhetoric, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un ramping up missile tests, and Vladimir Putin’s nationalist fervour, racial tensions have never been higher globally.
Along with these leaders, others portrayed are India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Germany’s Angela Merkel, Australia’s Malcolm Turnbull, China’s Xi Jinping, South Africa’s Jacob Zuma, and England’s Theresa May.
The series is the brainchild of Australian advertising creative director Alex Wadelton of independent advertising network Zoo Group and Irish art director and retouching artist Marcus Byrne.
“I was watching the news one night, looking at the state of politics in the UK, the US, and here in Australia, along with what’s happening in Syria, and the mass displacement of tens of millions people across the globe,” said Wadelton, “and it just feels like the world is on a knife edge at the moment. Our leaders are posturing to protect their own country rather than the future of humanity. It struck me that the only difference between us all is literally the skin we’re in. That one millimeter of skin that covers each human. Strip that away and what lies beneath us all is a fragile creature.”
He immediately thought of his good friend, and world-renowned image retoucher, Marcus Byrne as the person with the right level of skills, empathy, and ability to bring this idea to life.
Byrne believed in the idea straight away, even if he didn’t know immediately how to make it possible. Through weeks of experimenting he finally came up with a technique involving finding existing state portraits of the world leaders, layered upon human body schematics, with multiple shots of different cuts of meat to build the imagery.
“We wanted to show how fragile humanity is,” said Byrne. “There’s so much hate and negativity in the world at the moment, we thought that through stripping away this outer layer of skin, this one millimeter that encases us all, we could show how we are all the same inside.”
Prints of the artworks can be purchased from www.onemillimeter.org
Supporting the United Nation Foundation to encourage equality for all.
The full project can be viewed here:
https://www.behance.net/gallery/52721911/One-Millimeter-Showing-how-fragile-humanity-is
