“Who are you?” I’ve always felt that this question is nearly impossible to answer. There's so much material buried deep in our subconscious and unconscious minds and sometimes those aspects of ourselves that we conceal or repress have a greater sway over our identities than we think they do. The unconscious mind is also the source of our dreams, hence the title of my piece, Je Rêve (I Dream).
When I was assigned this project, I had a difficult time figuring out exactly what medium I should use to convey my identity. I usually have no trouble creating reflective visual art, but written statements about my art are difficult for me. I often have a hard time defending my artistic choices, because the messages carried in my pieces are more complex …show more content…
Identity is something that, though we develop it ourselves, is more often assigned to us based on our appearances, which is why bodies are so prominent in my work. When I was creating this piece, I hadn’t yet read the articles on identity in The Catherine Core Reader, therefore they had very little influence on my final product, but in retrospect, there is a quote from Evelyn Alsultany’s (2002) article that I feel relates to my piece, as well as my art as a whole: “Ask me who I am. Don't project your essentialism on my body then project hatred because I do not conform to your notions of who I'm supposed to be” (p. 61). When looking at my piece, viewers can make as many assumptions as they want about the boy in the painting, but the surrounding elements are there to tell them exactly what the boy identifies himself as. There is, in the painting and in the poetry, a voice that says, “this is a body that will not be possessed by anyone.” As an artist creating an emotionally charged, experience-based self-portrait, I cannot afford to allow my audience to interpret this piece as they see fit, lest in doing so they misidentify me in real life. By providing a spoken narrative to accompany my visuals, I can influence people’s thoughts about the piece before they have time form their own opinions on
When I was assigned this project, I had a difficult time figuring out exactly what medium I should use to convey my identity. I usually have no trouble creating reflective visual art, but written statements about my art are difficult for me. I often have a hard time defending my artistic choices, because the messages carried in my pieces are more complex …show more content…
Identity is something that, though we develop it ourselves, is more often assigned to us based on our appearances, which is why bodies are so prominent in my work. When I was creating this piece, I hadn’t yet read the articles on identity in The Catherine Core Reader, therefore they had very little influence on my final product, but in retrospect, there is a quote from Evelyn Alsultany’s (2002) article that I feel relates to my piece, as well as my art as a whole: “Ask me who I am. Don't project your essentialism on my body then project hatred because I do not conform to your notions of who I'm supposed to be” (p. 61). When looking at my piece, viewers can make as many assumptions as they want about the boy in the painting, but the surrounding elements are there to tell them exactly what the boy identifies himself as. There is, in the painting and in the poetry, a voice that says, “this is a body that will not be possessed by anyone.” As an artist creating an emotionally charged, experience-based self-portrait, I cannot afford to allow my audience to interpret this piece as they see fit, lest in doing so they misidentify me in real life. By providing a spoken narrative to accompany my visuals, I can influence people’s thoughts about the piece before they have time form their own opinions on