Barbara Kruger – Mental Health

About the Artist

• Barbara Kruger is an American conceptual artist. Her work consists of black and white images, behind a strong message surrounded in a red border. The messages she uses, use pronouns such as ‘you’, ‘your’, ‘I’, ‘we’, ‘they’ to address everyone, and make sure everyone listens to the message that she has to say. Kruger addresses issues such as power, identity and sexuality.

Analysis 1This piece from Kruger relates to my topic of mental health as when someone is suffering with a mental disorder, they aren’t themselves. The cracked mirror image represents the broken way that someone, who suffers with a mental disorder, would feel or see themselves. The broken up text also shows that a sufferer of a mental disorder would feel in pieces, and not whole due to the problems that they face.

Analysis 2This piece relates to eating disorders . Kruger shows this with diet pills, scales, a cosmopolitan magazine and the texts that she uses. People who suffer with eating disorders are sometimes influenced by the media. The magazine is significant because of this, as they contain dieting tips, and images of distorted or ‘perfected’ women in which someone might see and want to look like that.

My Work in the Style of Barbara Kruger