SI8

Artist Statement:

For this painting I wanted to focus on the fear of being stared at, scopophobia. This fear is almost exactly what it is. it can be related to public speaking and speeches, embarrassing moments, and anything that would fit. I made a tomato person thing being held up by something else, forcing itself to smile when it is clearly in distress and does not like the attention. 

To make this I used canvas I had at home, and acrylic paints. I used silver shiny paint to represent reflection, like looking in the mirror. In many cases people can become stressed out when looking at themself in the mirror and that's where I got the reference.

I started with a sketch I had made about a week ago for a different project. I changed it to have more of a "help me" look in it's eyes and two hands holding it up instead of one. I wish I had kept the lips because I feel like it added to the weirdness of it as a whole. I changed the tape to stitches to hold up it's smile because I found it generally more pleasing to look at. I also added dots with paint for shading instead of flat color.