For my painting series I wanted to explore the Surrealist and Abstract Expressionist mindset of creation in conjunction with my current body of cosmic work. As these two movements are based primarily in the individual experience, I chose to create this series based upon how I experience and process the world as a mentally ill, LGBTQ+ individual.
Creating eight acrylic-on-canvas paintings, four resembling Surrealist art and four Abstract Expressionist, I focused on emotions and experiences that pervade my everyday life—depression, love, anxiety, and fear. Therefore, I have paired my Surrealist and Abstract Expressionist works with a shared emotion, so as to limit experiential bias during their production and critique. My goal for each of these pieces was to create something universal yet personal and intimate in their ambiguity. Each painting is referential to my own creative psyche and emotional subconscious, with the imagery used in my Surrealist works coming from dreamlike moments of clarity, much like the works created by the Surrealists themselves. For my Abstract Expressionist pieces I removed all recognizable objects and chose to focus solely on the abstraction and physicality of motion and emotion. Each style I painted in came with their own process, though in both situations I relied heavily on intense emotional fluctuations for my inspiration. The Surrealist pieces required that I allowed some negative aspects of my mental illnesses to come to the surface, dissociation in particular. During moments of mental detachment I would channel what I felt strongest at the moment and create a sketch based on that state of mind. Making small adjustments along the way, the preliminary drawings became a guideline to what each painting should be; each 30 by 40 inch canvas depicts a realistic figure or humanoid being suspended in space. The cosmic backdrops eliminate the sense of depth, though the figure …show more content…
To create these paintings it was necessary that I remain emotionally vulnerable and psychologically open throughout their production. In a shared studio space, I listened to music that embodied the emotion I was painting, and allowed the feelings they incited to control my body. Further eliminating external influences, I chose to channel Jackson Pollock’s abnormal painting methods and created these pieces with my bare hands. This process relied completely on my emotions and my aesthetic taste, and therefore are devoid of all referential objects, leaving swaths of color in their …show more content…
During these critiques my peers were asked to respond to the images they were seeing and state whether or not they experienced an emotional or psychological reaction upon viewing them. Through this setup I hoped to mimic the reactions to Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism, both during their time and in contemporary society. Much like the primary trend with critics of Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism, during the first critique the response of the group was overwhelmingly skewed towards the Surrealist pieces. While a handful of my peers responded to the dynamic and near-hypnotic nature of the abstract pieces, the primary consensus was that they seemed to be lacking in purpose or skill. The Surrealist pieces, however, they viewed as completed works, citing the illusion of spatial awareness and the hint of a story within them. These opinions carried on to the next critique, unlike that of the Surrealist and Abstract Expressionist Movements, in which the critiques against them shifted in tune. However, during their second exposure, my peers did view my abstract pieces as being worthy of the title of “complete”, and believed there to be a story within them as
Creating eight acrylic-on-canvas paintings, four resembling Surrealist art and four Abstract Expressionist, I focused on emotions and experiences that pervade my everyday life—depression, love, anxiety, and fear. Therefore, I have paired my Surrealist and Abstract Expressionist works with a shared emotion, so as to limit experiential bias during their production and critique. My goal for each of these pieces was to create something universal yet personal and intimate in their ambiguity. Each painting is referential to my own creative psyche and emotional subconscious, with the imagery used in my Surrealist works coming from dreamlike moments of clarity, much like the works created by the Surrealists themselves. For my Abstract Expressionist pieces I removed all recognizable objects and chose to focus solely on the abstraction and physicality of motion and emotion. Each style I painted in came with their own process, though in both situations I relied heavily on intense emotional fluctuations for my inspiration. The Surrealist pieces required that I allowed some negative aspects of my mental illnesses to come to the surface, dissociation in particular. During moments of mental detachment I would channel what I felt strongest at the moment and create a sketch based on that state of mind. Making small adjustments along the way, the preliminary drawings became a guideline to what each painting should be; each 30 by 40 inch canvas depicts a realistic figure or humanoid being suspended in space. The cosmic backdrops eliminate the sense of depth, though the figure …show more content…
To create these paintings it was necessary that I remain emotionally vulnerable and psychologically open throughout their production. In a shared studio space, I listened to music that embodied the emotion I was painting, and allowed the feelings they incited to control my body. Further eliminating external influences, I chose to channel Jackson Pollock’s abnormal painting methods and created these pieces with my bare hands. This process relied completely on my emotions and my aesthetic taste, and therefore are devoid of all referential objects, leaving swaths of color in their …show more content…
During these critiques my peers were asked to respond to the images they were seeing and state whether or not they experienced an emotional or psychological reaction upon viewing them. Through this setup I hoped to mimic the reactions to Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism, both during their time and in contemporary society. Much like the primary trend with critics of Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism, during the first critique the response of the group was overwhelmingly skewed towards the Surrealist pieces. While a handful of my peers responded to the dynamic and near-hypnotic nature of the abstract pieces, the primary consensus was that they seemed to be lacking in purpose or skill. The Surrealist pieces, however, they viewed as completed works, citing the illusion of spatial awareness and the hint of a story within them. These opinions carried on to the next critique, unlike that of the Surrealist and Abstract Expressionist Movements, in which the critiques against them shifted in tune. However, during their second exposure, my peers did view my abstract pieces as being worthy of the title of “complete”, and believed there to be a story within them as