Milan, Italy 1880

Milan, Italy 1880

• Artist: Mary Thornley
• Title: Milan, Italy 1880
• Media: Oil on canvas
• Dimensions: 39 in. x 33 in.
• Date: 1994

• Biographical Information: Mary was born in 1950 and grew up in Elkhart, Indiana. She attended public school here, but later went to Indiana University at South Bend in 1987 and earned a bachelor's degree. In 1990, she earned a MFA from the University of Washington. She has participated in many different group projects and is currently living in Vancouver, BC. (Biography)
• Artist's Statement: "I work primarily in charcoal and oils.  I focus on Deaf life or Deaf experience, and the works are projections from these ruminations. My goal is to leave a body of work that says 'Deaf artist'."
• Background Information: "I choose this way of representing the oppressive attitude that existed toward sign language dating from the 1880s. And that the edict carried out in Milan, Italy in 1880—that sign language would no longer be used with deaf children but only 'oral' methods—was still in force in the year I was born, 1950."
• Connection to Theme: This connects to my Deaf Culture theme because Deaf culture contains a brutal history. I feel history is a very important part of a group's culture, therefore I needed to include it in my exhibit. Milan, Italy 1880 is based on another painting, The Executions of the Third of May 1808 by Francisco Goya. (look here) Back in the 1880s at the Milan Conference, a law was passed that banned sign language in the classrooms. Deaf people were literally being forced to speak and lipread, no matter how challenging it was for them. It stripped away their identities and left a negative impact on the Deaf people during that time. The people shooting guns at the ASL letters are meant to be the oralist people trying to eliminate sign language. I love how in her painting, Mary showed the concrete ASL letters beginning to crack from the gunfire being shot at them, but they never were completely destroyed. This shows that Deaf people went through a lot in the last few hundred years, but they overcame the discrimination and ignorance of the hearing people and have earned back their right to use ASL in the classroom! This was one of the most inspiring creations I had seen throughout my research. I believe it is empowering for the Deaf  that they should never give up no matter how many hearing people are against them.

Artist's statement (ctrl +click here) 

Background information (ctrl + click here) 
Painting information (ctrl + click here)