The Human Stain

Today I am looking at a piece of unfinished work I began working on about two years titled “The Human Stain”; and I think I may have come up with a solution on how to add the human form onto the image without destroying the images as it is. I need to find a light thin semi-transparent paper that is similar in color to the paper of the piece. Perhaps a type of Rice paper would work. Draw and manipulate the image onto the sheet of paper and then paste it onto the work itself. This way I can play with composition and keep the ghost like quality of the human figure that I want. I’m afraid that the texture of paint may become to heavy on concrete and pastels would look too soft plus the visual texture would conflict with the texture of the tea stains. I am still unsure exactly how I want the figure to be positioned.. I have a few ideas but nothing solid yet. Every time I envision the complete image the figure is positioned differently......
The image of the heart will also need to be added in the same way as the human form. The placement will depend on where the figure is placed. In the bottom right corner I want to add the image of feminine black shoes from aerial perspective. I’m inspired by the work of Judith Levin, Israeli artist. She had a series of figurative work where the figure is ambiguous, but details of the shoes and dresses are visually clearer.
Mom suggested that I not use the term “Stain” within the title. For her the word holds negative notions. I am not sure if that is a bad thing for me. She thinks that the terms Essence or Impression would be more appropriate. I need to think on this further. I like stain. The tea stain reminds me of a human stain one might find after a murder. I don’t want the image to relate to murder, but I think that it needs to relate to the stains left from traumatic experiences. Some experiences never fully leave us. They leave a permanent stain onto the soul.