Emma Matthews 

My sustained investigation visually follows the path of a painful and toxic relationship, from inception to complete destruction. The journey of my feelings from hope, excitement, and love, to distrust and betrayal. Each piece is connected through the use of the color red, which ties the pieces together by featuring an element of the relationship. In many pieces the red appears as a piece of string which eventually entangles, until it strangles and utterly destroys the relationship. My use of grey tones represents my initial doubts, which then progressed to representing the hurt and despair I felt at the end of the relationship.

The use of red was an experiment into using a pop of color in a purposeful way. The red literally represents objects that start off normal and beautiful but turn ugly, such as the string that bound me to the relationship, and figuratively represents emotions and negative actions such as pain, and destruction. I practiced and experimented with mixing acrylics and charcoal for unique effects, along with the ability to combine literal images with symbolic or conceptual ones, as a way of allowing the viewer to contemplate its meaning. The making of this series allowed me to process my failed relationship