The
subject of my self portrait is my view of the world around me and my struggle
within it. The purple background is a representation of how the world is in a
gloomy state at the moment and how dark it can be. The eyes are representative
of how I don’t like being watched, being the center of attention and how I fear
that people are watching me and judging me. The tentacles are the gloomy
experiences I’ve had throughout my life and is supposed to represent how those
are the moments where I’m being pulled into this depressing reality of the
world around me but I refuse to do so. The hanging pocket watch is a reminder
to myself that I can never go back on what I say and what I do.
That
my decisions are final and will always affect someone. The blood dripping from
the pocket watch signifies that it’s my heart and that it’s been hurt plenty,
especially as I begin to grow as a person. My hands, although red, aren’t meant
to be bloody hands but rather a symbol of power because that’s when I feel my
strongest. I have the ability and power to manipulate anything I create with my
hands, the world I draw is mine to manipulate. My stitched mouth represents how
I’m always silent and don’t really speak up much, my preference to not be
noticed and just stay an observer.
The
reason I decided to paint my self portrait is because I felt it would be the
best way to describe my love for arts and crafts and to demonstrate the level
of my skill. Although difficult to add details, I feel like the simplicity of
the painting is more striking than something with overdone shadows and
textures. The reason why the background is painted so inconsistently is because
I feel like the world around me is always so hectic, in a rush and bustling,
noisy, irritating. I wanted to express that with some shackie strokes in some
areas and some very straight strokes in others. I was originally thinking of
taking a different approach to the painting and making one with more color but
I thought it was important that this painting be representative of how I’m
feeling right now at the present, I’m feeling down and gloomy but hopeful and
optimistic, which is why I’m so brightly colored in comparison to the
background.
I
believe that my self portrait conveys this chaotic swell of emotions and
depressing tone of me to the viewers. Frida Kahlo’s work was a source of
reference that I used for how I wanted my painting to be. I wanted it to be
strong and powerful like her works but not as grotesque or gory as some of her
other works. The techniques that I used for the making of this self portrait
was an initial sketching phase where I sketched out the placement of where
everything would roughly go, followed by 2 separate painting phases. The 1st
was the base colors for all the shapes within the painting followed by the
small details I added on. The slight tear at the end represents the slow
collapse of the world around me.
I
believe that this project represents me because its representing both the way I
currently feel and how I think about the world around me. It might be somewhat
misleading and confusing at times but for the most part I believe it accurately
represents me. It demonstrates the gloomy world I live in and my casual stance
as I lean on my heart is my refusal to give in to this gloomy world. I‘m bright
and optimistic despite being discouraged and I stick to my heart (the pocket
watch), even if it hurts.
No comments:
Post a Comment