alicia dillard: color artist-barbara krueger

The red in this poster, by Barbara Krueger, immediately caught my attention. I noticed that not only in this poster, but also in Krueger’s other works she tends to use black, white, and grey with red being the only color. Especially in this poster I feel like the red is really meaningful. Red is a passionate almost hostile color which lends emphasis to the battleground that Krueger is attempting to instill upon the viewer. The two faces of the woman also indicate some form of tension or struggle. The woman’s face on the left side of the poster is realistic with a determined set to it. The right side of the woman’s face appears to be stripped of its defined features to be replaced by blurred white and grey tones. This blurring adds an almost malicious hint to this half of the woman’s face. These implied characteristics of determination and maliciousness can be found on a battleground, leading us back to the major point of this piece: “Your body is a battleground.”