All right, the following are some photos from the studio. What you see is very much in progress and not even close to its completed state, so do not, do not, do not judge this as a completed concept or piece. There, got my qualifier over with (phew), and now I’m ready to actually talk about the art.
This is the first of a series of word portraits, and I plan to have at least six done for my show next semester. This idea has been stuck in my brain for the last five or six months and soaks up most of my thoughts. My mind just won’t move on to anything else.
These portraits result from a very frustrating and confusing period of my life. Filled with over ten thousand thoughts that were splitting my psyche into two, I felt very overwhelmed by my own brain and very incapable of expressing everything that was inside of me. Around April I decided to start jotting these thoughts down, and soon the project filled ten pages and five months. This collage combines those written thoughts with visual language.
This particular piece began as a record, a way of describing and exploring a specific period of my life, but it has since developed into something a little bit more universal (I love when that just naturally happens). The heart of this series is no longer about autobiography but rather centers on all the unseen elements that make each of us human. In this particular work, it’s thoughts. No one can see what I’m thinking, but gosh, heaven knows that a large part of my personality either comes from or generates my thoughts. But no one can see that part of me! No matter how hard they look!
Then came the eye-opening, brain-widening realization that every day all those people I pass—you know, the ones in all the honking cars or riding slow bikes or obstinately walking in front of me as I’m trying to get around them on the sidewalk—yeah, all those people, all those strangers that can be so frustrating when you’re in a hurry—well, they’re thinking just as many thoughts as I am! They’re just as complicated, just as diverse, just as interesting and just as deserving of attention as everything filling up my brain, which consequently means people are just as complicated, diverse, interesting, and deserving of attention as I am. Crazy!
This is something I believe we all know, but it’s not something we all think about. We’d rather just see faceless strangers because then we can get as angry, insensitive, and annoyed as we’d like with them.
Like in my case. Very few people knew about the bewildering, wearisome months that produced this collage. Only a few friends and family members were aware of it. Yet, during that time I passed hundreds of strangers every day that saw me, that probably even noticed me, but nevertheless were ignorant of my circumstances and thus apathetic of them. I now realize that I am not an exception and am just as unaware of and indiferent to my fellow human beings.
So I guess in a way these collages are about raising awareness. Honestly, we could go to any museum and look at a dozen beautifully painted portraits. We’d rightfully dub them masterpieces. However, if we'd stop and think, we'd realize that we just looked at a dozen strangers. No matter how skillful the depiction, how accurate the proportions, in the end it is an unfamiliar face, and nothing in that painting will expose that person’s identity to us. It’s just another person we passed.
Most portraiture concerns itself with articulating the outward and not the inward, the physical instead of the intangible. My art concentrates on the latter because I am certain that is what makes us human. I don’t want my portraits to represent one more stranger.
So here’s the first one. All you can see right now is the first layer of paper. Like I said earlier, it’s very incomplete. There will be at least five more in the next couple months. Stay posted for further developments!
And let me know if you have any questions or comments or just what you think (even if it's negative). I always need a fresh view of my work.
