Wednesday, March 14, 2012

ph. mb. pt. two

   I remember taking the same route back to the apartment after class every single day. I remember my last class got out right as the sun was setting. I was always so awed by the lights, shadows, fleeting warmth, pending cold. And I remember that sunset was a constant reminder that I am alive, that I'm so damn lucky.

   Going through all these old photos is nostalgic to say the least. Chao was a really good person, and I miss her dearly. The first day I met her, we became best friends right away. I listened to her, she listened to me, we just had this comfortability with each other that was really rare with others. It was nice to have her as a roommate, I learned so much from her. I always thought of her as my sister, a sister that I would confide to, that I loved and that I cared for.






































 
   Junior year, March 2009. This was towards the end of my winter quarter and this was the first piece I made after being accepted into the BFA program. I remember being so nervous because I knew that the BFA program was a big deal, that all my art professors from that point on mentioned it at some point. I'm so thankful that I had professors/mentors that helped me reach this point and encouraged me to apply for the program.

   I wanted to work on a piece that summed up my personal issues I was going through at the time. I've always had self esteem issues, I've always been self-conscious about my looks, I've always been insecure about plenty. This was a project to confront those issues, to confront what had been building up for years, or as long as I could remember.

    So I decided a self portrait was the route to take since this was about.. myself. I thought to myself, when is the only time I look in a mirror? And then I realized that I see my face when I'm brushing my teeth. So I came up with the idea of drawing two portraits of myself on my page of me brushing my teeth. One pencil drawing representing the "real" me, how I really look. And the other drawing which was fully painted in gouache to represent how I saw myself. So I exaggerated my features, I made my face longer, I made my nose bigger, I changed everything about my face and body.






































 
   Then I hung up the pieces on a grid format. I used two projectors to project an image of two reference photos that I drew from. To further project that idea of my "real self". I was so happy with how this project came out. My intention was for the viewer to walk in front of the projector to look closer at the drawings and to project their own shadow/body/image onto the wall. Further propelling this idea of self image.

   This was on of my first pieces that I felt helped me get through some real issues that would bothering me for so long. I actually ended up feeling like I had nothing to worry about, realizing that I am me, and there is no need to worry about just being myself. This was also the first piece I ever made for my first BFA critique, which turned out to be a really good and fun critique.

2 comments:

Adrien said...

I love your art and the meaning behind it, I really do. I know I've told you this before, but when I see things like this it really makes me happy because you're able to deal with personal issues in such a creative and self-confrontational way. I think it's really great.

Amy Marie said...

So great! i agree with everything adrien has to say