Know Thyself: Digital Collage
Exhibition Text
Title: Muted
Medium: Digital Collage Size: 61cm x 91cm Month of Completion: September 2015 This collage inspired by the prints of Robert Longo, communicates a fear of self-expression and essentially muffling myself. I tried to create a sense of simplicity in the composition and black and white color scheme to show that this fear is deeply ingrained into my personality even though I understand what's going on; just because I know what's going on doesn't mean I can just brush it off. |
Beginning Process
I began creating a digital collage in the beginning of junior year, but I have thought about it and fleshed out ideas for two years, since I began in freshman year Art Foundations. I was so excited that first day that I immediately went through every project assignment listed on Mr. Chad’s website for junior and senior art courses, trying to come up with ideas for how I would attack each artwork, who I could be inspired by, what I would try to communicate through my art, etc. Over the next two years, I thought about this collage over and over, because I knew then that I did not completely know who I was, and the idea of trying to present to others what I didn’t know myself terrified me.
|
Gradually, I began to gravitate towards two separate aspects that I did understand about myself: a fear of public speaking and a fear of contracting a serious mental illness. At first I thought fearing mental illness could be potentially more interesting, but as my personal experience with it deals with relatives that suffer from it, I felt that it would be too intrusive to their privacy, and that the piece itself could end up being more about them than me.
|
Speaking in public has always been a source of constant fear and anxiety for me; I have difficulty maintaining the courage to express myself. It’s something I deal with on a daily basis, from speaking my opinion to simply raising my hand in class; even when I am sure of my answer, there is a shadow of doubt over it. I knew this was what I wanted to depict in my art because again and again this was what I found myself thinking about, and coming up with ideas to communicate this concept.
|
Artistic Inspiration
For my artistic inspiration I felt kind of lost at first, knowing what I wanted my subject to be but not how to go about it. I looked at many different digital artists, but I needed a fine artist inspiration for this piece, and eventually I decided on Robert Longo. I wanted to mimic the same black and white, highly contrasted images he uses in his prints, which I knew I could easily create in a Photoshop collage. While his prints, especially American Psycho, seem very violent and incorporate much more movement, I wanted mine to be more still and calm.
|
|
Process
Right away I wanted to make mouths the central element to my piece, as a representation of speech and expression. I experimented with ideas centered around the inability to use my mouth, like pieces depicting it stitched shut or completely erased from my face. All of these still didn’t feel right, because they weren’t an accurate depiction of how I feel about expressing myself. It’s not that I think I am unable to speak at all, because I know that I am the only thing standing in the way of speaking up, and yet it’s so difficult to stop from holding myself back. This was what inspired the idea of muffling myself, shown as two distinct parts of me: the half that wants to speak and the half that stops me from speaking. I depicted each version of myself as identical, neither half being lighter or darker than the other, because although I know my fears are holding me back, there’s a part of me that likes being quiet. It’s part of my identity and always has been; I enjoy being someone that can simply observe from a distance and never feel the need to be in the spotlight.
I began with photographing self portraits, experimenting with lighting (the best of which I found outdoors). I then uploaded them to Photoshop and experimented with adjusting saturation and color, which I liked but didn’t give the same effect as the stark black-and-white compositions that Longo makes. I also thought photographing outside had too much going on in the background, and it was difficult to demonstrate the focus of my piece as the twin versions of myself. I ended up moving inside to photograph against a blank white wall instead of trying to manipulate outdoor photos. This created a much subtler background while keeping the realness of shadows and variation.
|
Once I had the photos I wanted, I began to develop layers of color adjustment to demonstrate the same level of contrast and color saturation used by Longo. I went with very high contrast and total lack of color, which describes a lack of expression and individuality. The only other problem I had with this process was getting the arm of the version on the left in the right position. Often the photographs would come out with the arm unable to stretch over the other version’s mouth without layering the shoulders on top of each other, which only added confusion and didn’t look professional. The solution to this proved easy though, simply taking more photographs experimenting with different positions.
|