Susan Dupor: My Identity As A Deaf Man

Susan Dupor was was born deaf in Madison, Wisconsin from kindergarten through 12th grade. She currently teaches art at Wisconsin School for the Deaf. De'VIA is short for Deaf View/Image Art. She is known for her paintings and one of her favorites is The Family Dog.

https://youarts.quora.com/Susan-Dupor

The Deaf person is the one on the floor in the painting, and all the hearing people are seated on the couch. This painting has touched many people, because deaf people recognize themselves in this painting. Susan Dupors statement:
“As an artist who is Deaf, I am constantly exploring my identity as a Deaf woman.  I have been painting within this theme for the past ten years and my perspective has changed throughout the years. There were moments when I vented my emotions, and others when I wanted to celebrate the uniqueness of Deaf culture and seek the ironies of being Deaf in a hearing world.”
Susan Dupors artwork meets the De’VIA criteria, reasoning

behind it is in the painting above it shows how Susan felt with having a hearing family. In today’s society’s we tend to avoid or shun people out who are different than us. Susan felt more left out and isolated in some situations compared to other hearing people. She uses various colors from bright to dull. She includes the people’s hands in most paintings. Her art work shows us how deaf people view themselves. The facial expressions she paints on them are spot on with how they are feeling. In the painting of The Family Dog the deaf person on the floor has a normal face where the hearing people sitting on the couch kind of has a blurry and messed up face. I think in the painting she’s trying to show how the deaf people feel compared to the hearing people.
De'VIA is created when the artist intends to express their Deaf experience through visual art.

I truly believe she is trying to express how her deaf experience is through the painting of The Family Dog. She thinks the world shuns deaf people out due to them being different. They get a pat on the head when they’re being good just like a dog would. She is centralized focus on showing how the deaf person’s face is in her paintings and how they’re feeling. She also exaggerates the use of hands in her paintings. I’m assuming to show that they are deaf and how hands are they’re way of mainly speaking. So Susan Dupor uses all the De’VIA criteria’s. Her main focus is on the hands, she focuses on different yet odd colors to explain the mood and how they’re feeling. She also makes the hearing people’s faces different than the deaf. She makes the facial features very good and in depth so we know what exactly they are feeling. She also expresses how the deaf person may feel in the painting or in the situation they’re

in.