Thursday, April 23, 2020

Self Portait

   For my self portrait I funneled through a rabbit hole of archived pictures to create a photomontage. I put plenty of old pictures layered on top of each other on Photoshop, then opened it in Procreate to add some doodles last and change some colors. In this collage of images, I tried to show objects that are a connection to my environment and others. 
     To start with the environmental connection, I included a newspaper article on the top right of a shipwreck that happened in my area around a hundred years ago, which was the Morro Castle. I remember seeing images of the boat scattered throughout my old house from older generations. Where I grew up and the history behind the area are very important to me and I would spend a crazy amount of time researching in high school. I included words or phrases throughout the piece from old newspaper ads. There is “wrecked” for the connection to the shipwreck article. I put “Don’t Forget It” on the woman’s cheek to show the history and love for my town. I think overall the montage looks similar to the street art I used to see all over town when I was younger, especially Indie 184. There was always a ton of art and funky, eclectic people to inspire around. My local area completely shaped my world.       
For more broad ideologies, I used a lot of anatomy illustrations. I used transparent hands to create a crown around the women's head, and for the circle, a microscopic tissue sample. I included both hands and tissue to show a connection between us all, since we are all just humans. I also included transparent scattered throughout the tissue sample. The eyes are there to show how so many eyes are perceiving and making assumptions. I also included a skull, people kissing and clock for the same reason, all the desires and struggles we all have to deal with. This class forced me into different perspectives, which I enjoyed but, I wanted to show the common ground of all the stories and events we discussed in class. “Zooming in” is a simple thing, knowing yourself is easy, but “Zooming out” is a lot harder. I always sympathized with the discussions in class. I thought although we all come from a background and cultures, and different hardships, we all share the same basic desires and needs. I wanted to touch on being a woman as well. I included the woman, the breast, and two rib cages that are different from male to female. I resonated with the Feminist Manifesto we read in class about, and for this case the 9th suggestion, where she explains the importance of identity. She explains the bounding boxes of sex and race, and how there are roles and oppression in culture. The thought that I had by putting these images in is that, there are differences in sexes and they should be exemplified and empowered for each, but they should not limit anyone. The author explains in the same chapter, with the cultural standard of girls doing their hair and makeup, and how it should be an option to opt in to these practices, instead of a pressure. I thought that these bogus societal rules are engraved in us young, and could never break. Gender roles are instilled in us all based on physical differences.

No comments:

Post a Comment