Mirrored - Lily Wiwi

Lily Wiwi -

My work for the past two years has been more experimental, as I thought I should try out newer mediums as my art style has always been set in place over the years. I wanted to try mediums out that I hadn’t thought of before because of my hesitance with newer materials and subjects. For this exhibition I wanted to explore different mediums I could use and create artworks on subjects that have meaning to me.

A lot of what has been going on in the world currently definitely affected my work, with two art pieces I have that reflect my mental state in two different times. Most of my works are simply influenced by subjects I care about, birds and major world issues. Like with my artwork “A Younger Perspective”, it had been influenced by issues that surrounded me, like pretty much all major world issues. This particular piece also allowed me to practice more with a medium I struggle with, which is acrylic paints (or really any paints). I’m proud of this piece since it is one of my more “put together” acrylic pieces. This really helps make me feel more confident about what mediums I use, since a lot of decisions I make surrounding what to use is mostly influenced by my sensory issues and how I deal with them. Paints are really hard to deal with, if I get any on my hands it makes my skin crawl. Mediums like alcohol markers are generally my fallback; they dry instantly and only leave their pigment on the skin. Paints will leave a layer of paint even after drying unless it’s washed off immediately, and it's hard to get up and wash my hands every time. However, as I explore using paints more and more, I find work arounds like holding the brushes differently so it’s harder for my hands to be near the canvas, so I can’t accidentally get wet paint from the canvas onto my hands.

For this current body of work, I used it to explore both mediums and how my identity reflects upon my art. “Overwhelmed” explores how being autistic can often affect me, and indirectly explores how my mental health shows up within my artworks, as the redo of Overwhelmed looks a lot more different as quarantine may have affected themes within my art. For my artwork “Skull”, I looked at works by Georgia O'Keeffe, and continued with my motif in my works using flowers. “Hey There” was also an exploration of mediums, using paint and mixing mediums I am familiar with.

Title: Overwhelmed

Medium: Digital

Dimensions: 22 cm x 30 cm

I made an artwork about how I feel when I get overwhelmed because of being overstimulated. I have Autism, so I just shut down, and a lot of what I feel is internal rather than external. It's hard for me to explain, and so when I started making this I thought about what I usually experience, and I thought about stuff that makes me overstimulated. I focused on how I could communicate how I feel through this piece, since I also struggle with communicating.

Title: Feathers

Mediums: Clay, acrylic paints, jewelry wire

Dimensions: 13 cm tall, 23 cm wide

For my art pieces I usually haven’t focused on the purpose, so my first art piece this semester I chose a topic I care about. I really love parrots and I have a lot of knowledge on how to take care of them, which includes their mental health. Parrots can get depressed, develop anxiety and become aggressive if not cared for properly. Parrots will pull out their feathers from stress and or depression as a form of self harm, then moving on to their skin.

Overwhelmed Remake: A Reflection on Mental Health and Art

Mediums: Digital

Dimensions: 22 cm x 30 cm

I decided to remake my last artwork pertaining to this topic, Overwhelmed. I decided to do it mainly to see how much my perspective changed on it; then I realized that it looked different because I currently have a better mental state than in quarantine. I was definitely a lot more depressed at the time- kind of hard not to be when you’re in your room all day. Now that stuff has opened up and we’re in-person, I’ve definitely improved mentally, which I believe reflects in this artwork.

Title: Hey There

Mediums: Acrylic paints, alcohol pens, waterproof pens, white gel pens

Dimensions: 27 x 35 cm

For this artwork, I used shape and contrast, and contrast usually relies on contrast. The inspiration pretty much came to me when I was listening to a song and it helped me get some ideas. Then I did thumbnail sketches and got the art piece done relatively quickly despite it only being technically only the second time I’ve worked with acrylic paint on a canvas. I had to do the small bird people in the center on a piece of paper and used markers, as I couldn’t figure out how to paint them.

Smoke

Mediums: Watercolor, Alcohol marker, Pen

Dimensions: 27 x 38 cm

In this artwork, I wanted to experiment with how I made the colors kind of bleed together with watercolor components in Torn Up. I also used warmer colors and complimented them with blues and purples, mostly just to see how it would look. I also liked the idea of making it look like smoke or kind of like water-oil separation.

Title: Dual

Mediums: Printing ink

22 cm x 30 cm

For this artwork, I wanted to experiment with something relatively new. I remember doing something in 7th grade with printmaking, but it didn't really do much for me at the time. This was mostly to mess around with a new medium and it was an interesting experience. Mainly since carving the linotype felt like drawing backwards, and it was fun to do the printing itself and see what processes worked and what didn't work.

Skull

Medium: Digital

Dimensions: 2,000 x 1,600 px

For this artwork, I ended up being inspired by an artwork by Georgia O'Keefe. It was called "Ram's Head, White Hollyhock Hills", which featured a ram's head with rolling hills in the backround, and a white hollyhock next to the skull. I wanted to do some more with flowers, and choose black roses and daffodils, as they meant death and rebirth (respectively), as I thought it played into the themes of the piece itself. I decided to use a wolf/dog's skull mainly just because I thought it looked better. It was fun to do my take on a piece of art like this, since the simplicity allowed me to explore different themes in my artwork.

Title: A Younger Perspective

Dimensions: 50 x 40 cm

For my work I wanted to draw on the self expression that was explored in previous works. I have been avoiding the media lately, and everytime I check in on it it looks like a disaster so I used that feeling to create this piece. I thought of it like a child’s perspective of how the world’s become, even using a simple, cartoonish looking rocket to kind of enforce that feeling.

Torn Up

Dimensions: 50 x 76 cm

Acrylic paint, watercolor, multi media paper, illustration board

In this art piece I decided to try and explore balance and color. I also decided to try and fit it into a theme of Identity since a lot of my other artworks play along with that kind of theme. I also wanted to play with drawing plants, in this case flowers. This is because I'm not super experienced with drawing plants since I had not been previously interested in it before. It was also so I could mess around with drawing vertebra.