SI#2

Artist's Statement:

The idea behind this work came from the idea of self image, and the way that we see ourselves. I wanted to represent that feeling of dread that comes with looking in the mirror, of just waiting to see what is wrong with your image this time. I ended up making that 'monster' pretty abstract, you can see in the process images that I went through several variations. I ended up settling on the one I did because it felt twisty, and I felt that represented the feeling you get in your gut. I also picked that final design because I thought it was the scariest of the lot, and I wanted this piece to feel as scary as looking in the mirror and seeing a monster would feel.

I chose to paint directly on a mirror, because I felt that without that background the meaning of the art would not get across as well. I had some difficulties with the actual painting. It turns out that acrylic on glasslike material is actually pretty fragile, and while that made getting enough layers on so that it was not see through hard, it made cleaning up the lines much easier. The ultimate reason that I chose a mirror was also that I wanted to play with light, and how the art would look in different environments. I wanted to see how different environments would change the art, and what properties it would maintain, and what properties it would lose.

My process started out with a lot of idea generation. I took some inspiration from my first project, SI#1. I did this by keeping the black and white outlook and design-based figures. I also wanted to experiment with using stencils, something that I have never tried before. you can see in the process photos above that I experimented with using the projector to enlarge my image.