The ten works of art in one week was a disproportionate workload for anyone. All ten pieces based on the word ‘Solitude’. It was messy, it was painful, and at times I wanted to destroy some of my pieces. However I learned a lot about letting my emotions guide my pieces more than my brain. As I find my works got more and more emotionally charged as I continued working. Getting closer to the deadline pushed me to be less thought provoking and more an accurate to my subconscious in the moment.
St Emilion was a piece that I made as a sort of mash-up of two photos. The photo of the grape vineyards in bordeaux, and the photo of the silhouette of St Emilion. I wanted to have a sort of ghost-like effect in the city. Like it’s covered by a fog or clouds. This was one of the last pieces I did. I was reminded of my trip to france over the summer. And I realized in this piece a more positive aspect of solitude. The sort of loneliness that comes from new experiences. The calm of leaving all you know behind.
Another piece that was more fluidly created in my subconscious is Caged Songbird. When I was working on his piece I was listening to a lot of western music. A facet of western music is it’s sort of poetic storytelling, that paints a story of hard work and in many ways, the isolation of an in their journey in life. The eventuality of life and the loneliness of it. And the Caged Songbird was brought forth by a song called My Silver Linings. I started to think about how, we sing poetically about the heart, how it ties us to the world around us emotionally. But the great irony of the heart is it’s isolation. For the heart to keep beating, it can never truly be connected. The heart poetically is tied to many other aspects of emotion, but lives in solitude in the ribcage. The caged songbird was a very poetic emotional piece, the heart, alone and washed in darkness as it still beats, still longs for connection.
The Post-Modern Outcast was a piece that I had a lot of passion for. This one was a display of both technical skill, and of concept. Firstly, the craftsmanship of this piece was a sort of challenge to myself with acrylics. My goal not to use any black paint. All of the shadows are dark shades of blues and purples. This made the piece feel more colorful and less drained. The lack of black shadows made the contrasting tones really vibrant, as the difference between colors is more dependant on color than a disparity in tone. Another technical display is the glass. The glass bottles and fabric. The sheets and curtains I wanted to make airy and light by the thin creases and proximity of said creases. I’m very proud of the bed sheet especially just by the multitude of colors and shadows. The bottles meanwhile were difficult but I feel they accomplished what I wanted. The point of view through the glass in the foreground was accomplished by painting that section of the painting in more cool tones. Then I painted the edges of the blue glass. This piece was based on he solitude that one can put themselves in by alcohol and drugs. How getting drunk and high can isolate you from reality, and how that can be a very good thing, or a very negative thing. This piece was an interesting piece for me. I have a lot of relatives who have put themselves into terrible situations because of alcohol and drugs, and I’ve seen first hand the implosion of alcoholism and addiction.
Three of my pieces are based on a video game called We Know The Devil. When I first played this video game, I felt a strong emotional pull to it. The story is about three campers at a religious summer camp who are tasked with a bizarre and vague job of keeping vigilance for the return of the devil. Their radios are used to communicate with supernatural forces, like the voices of angels and the breathing of the devil. The game leads with three characters. Venus, a girl born a boy who’s been raised in a fundamentalist christian household, hiding the fact that she’s transgender. She’s been ignored for her true self for most of her life. The second character, Jupiter, suffered an unspecified trauma when she was younger, and from that day forward no one in her life has touched her. Her mother never brushed her hair, her father never hugged her. Most contact was fleeting, but she reveled in it. She became obsessed with any contact, desiring for someone to touch her again. Finally is Neptune. Neptune in her recent years has become more and more rebellious, pushing christianity from her life. She blasphemed frequently, and was punished severely by her domineering mother, culminating on being sent to this mysterious summer camp.
As the story progresses, you have options to choose who will be working together, and who will be left behind. By the end of the story, they are seeking shelter from a great wind storm in an abandoned cabin. Whoever was left behind begins to change. They become more and more sick, distracted, or emotional. Culminating in the radios feeding the voice of the character left behind. The one you left behind becomes the devil.
Each devil-version of the characters is what I chose to draw. First is Venus. She’s depicted as the idealized female form, the body and person she’s always wanted to embody, an angel of sorts, covered in eyes. The eyes all looking to her, ensuring she’ll be seen for who she truly is at last. In Venus’s depiction, I utilized a subtle shadow of blue to the side she was facing away from, and the feminine pink of the side she faces. I also incorporated a symbol of her namesake, Venus. The roses on the left balancing the image. Next is Jupiter. She’s covered in white ghost-like hands. Jupiter has the fewest actual changes to her appearance. Showing that her issues aren’t a separate entity that she’s been harmed by, but rather a desire that burns to her core. The desire to feel physical affection. She has a hand for every sort of contact, displayed by the variety of and poses and interactions on Jupiter’s body. Finally is Neptune, who is perceived as the most ‘devilish’ in nature. Thick black ink drips from her arms, mouth, eyes, and hair. Symbolic of the punishment for her blasphemy.
These three pieces I have mixed feelings about. I wish I could have done them digitally, the images I wanted to create I know I can make digitally, but in marker there was a sort of fallacy. A valley between what I wanted to make and what I was able to make. These three are both pleasing and frustrating at once.
The first piece I made for this project, January’s Pasture was based on a scene I had in my mind. A memory of seeing barns in the snow, and always thinking they looked lonely. A location that usually is bustling with life becomes silent and isolated in the snow. January I have always associated with this sort of sharp freezing loneliness, and the emptiness and open space of a farm struck me as a very negative, very dead sort of scene. Is the barn abandoned? Is the barn haunted? Nothing is for sure, just a sense of isolation from civilization. A wide expanse of nothing in the snow.
Silence Underground was a piece that was incredibly difficult for me. First off, it was a very patterned. I can tell you from experience now that drawing skulls 40 or so times is not very fun activity. And it was in a material I don’t use often; oil pastels. I wanted to capture a sharp and jarring image. Overly saturated colors in a very ancient and sollem location like the catacombs. This piece is supposed to be harsh on the eyes. A tourist trap, and a historically sollem location.
Next is a piece that was rather high concept for me. I started to think about difference cultures who lived in isolation, I looked to aboriginal stone mosaics. The more and more I looked at them I started to think of the aboriginal culture. How their isolation was a good thing. They lived in relative bliss until the horrors of imperialist britain interfered in their lives. Positivity in isolation started to make me think about my own life. How there are a number of communities who have isolated me for my ideas, my personality, my choices. And I began to think about those communities, and came to the conclusion I’d rather be isolated from those communities than be a part of them, denying who I am and where I came from. This piece is symbolic for me personally. The figure in the middle, holding a bold and contrasting heart out for display. Bearing her heart on her sleeve. I titled this piece ‘Halo’ in reference to the warm center circle that the figure occupies, symbolizing the internalization of acceptance. Outside of the circle are more cool colors, blues and magentas. Around the halo is a sort of thorn circle, and outward from there the cross-like shapes of swords, showing the violence, rejection, and judgement of said communities if I were to return.
My final piece, Big Skies and Big Egos, is a very simple piece. I wanted to convey natural isolation. The isolation of the desert. I also wanted to play with balance in this image. The cactus is uncomfortably far to the left, even going off the canvas. This image I wanted to be simple and warm, displaying the silence and loneliness of the desert.
