acrylic on paper; 14×11”
“My art piece is about how the way parents punish their children can affect them badly. It addresses the fifth human right article because no one wants to be degraded. The treatment of children is important to me. As someone who was both abused, and just punished for messing up, it never really felt too different.
In my painting the wing’s wilting shows how the child’s wellbeing and freedoms are going away, and the birdcage shows how the child is trapped with the parents that harmed them. NINETEEN US states allow for corporal punishment in schools and there would be little to no repercussions, since it’s legal.”
ARTIST BIO: Virgil Hoskins is a Grade 12 student at Butler Tech School of Art (SOA).
PROJECT: After learning about human rights in Mrs. Valerie Folz’ Government classes at Butler Tech School of the Arts, 45 high school students chose a human rights issue they wanted to research. Then in Mrs. Mary Catherine Ruby’s Visual Art + Design classes they visually communicated their voice through their art using symbolic imagery to represent the human rights issue they had selected.