Senior Project - Week 1
As a senior year art student at UMA in Augusta, ME, we are to complete our senior thesis by taking Senior Project. Throughout the semester we are to complete a blog each week that follows the process of our work and the steps we take that involves research of other artists, observation, and problem solving to create a body of work.
The basic idea around my senior project revolves around mental health issues, of which I suffer, such as depression/anxiety/PTSD, etc, and how it can be represented in my artwork with metaphor, style, material, etc. Within recent years, the subject of mental health has been a largely discussed topic, in which one in four people are diagnosed as having at least one form of a mental health problem. It seems important to me to discuss these problems and feelings in my work as someone who, like many, is living with them daily.
Like many, the symptoms of these issues leaves one living a life that doesn't feel like a life at all. It breaks our realities and sense of time, leaves us bitter and broken, and keeps us from getting out of bed and eliminates the chances of us living our best, as much as we try to. I, myself, have sought out the comforts of drinking, binge eating, smoking, etc, as a way to cope, yet at the same time it continues to worsen the problem - feeding the cycle of mental illness. I plan on incorporating these mechanisms in my work in some form.
Once a person is trapped in that pit it it's hard to break out or admit that we need help. Instead, we ignore the issues, accepting that we must endure it for what it is, and just get comfortable with the fact that nothing will be the same as it was (the best help I found a few years ago was through mindful meditation, something I use to keep up with daily. However, even too much of that started to become dangerous to my mental health.)
The first few sketches I have done during the break, with the idea of a triptych telling the story, is that of a series of personalities representing the many faces of these illnesses, as they endure a desolate landscape filled with brokenness. The idea of this is centered around mental illness being like a tumor, in which it spreads to every fiber of the being. From my first artist statement:
By using various metaphor, I depict a desolate landscape that is plagued by barbed spikes and its tendrils, a representation of how mental health illnesses act like a tumor in which is pierces and spreads to all aspects of being; and a cracked and broken scenery filled with various objects and faces. The crumbling foundations of a fragile mind and sense of being is depicted throughout, in which multiple faces represent the many personalities that mental health issues leave one having.
I want to portray the uncomfortable aspects that comes with mental health issues. The feelings of drowning, fear, abandonment, emptiness, and feeling like nothing more than just a part of the scenery, all the while just watching your life go by on both sides of the glass. I incorporated the fossils and the ruins in the triptych to represent the passing of one's past self before mental illness took over and brought about extinction of innocence.
Thursday - 1/23/-2020
Continued working on more concept ideas and looking at other contemporary artists that touch on similar subjects. Two that I have found are Paul Cristina and Deb Weiers, both who work in different styles and mediums but are both great references to see how artists portray depression, etc, that is along the lines of what I want to convey. By taking reference photos of myself, I used those to sketch out a couple ideas in pencil and with the similar themes of brokenness and coping that is part of my triptych. I'm quite critical of myself, and sketched out an idea of that mixed with how I use binge eating as a coping device. The other sketch continued with the theme of falling apart, instead, my portrait is pulling bits of herself off, due to my somewhat apathetic and self-sabotaging nature that depression so lovingly provides.
Friday - 1/24/2020
Still playing with the idea of mental illness spreading like a tumor, I drew a preliminary sketch using a photo reference of one, drawing it as a giant ball of tendrils that spreads throughout. WebMD defines a tumor as:
a mass of tissue that's formed by an accumulation of abnormal cells. Normally, the cells in your body age, die, and are replaced by new cells. With cancer and other tumors , something disrupts this cycle.
I mean no disparagement to those who do have cancer, but as a way to show that mental illness, like a tumor, causes the disruption of normal behavior, thought pattern, and feelings, etc, in those that suffer from it. I will be continuing my research on this subject by looking at various tumors and how they act, etc.
Saturday - 1/25/20
I looked more at different types of tumors and how they act in the body, and continued to work more on sketches. I also looked more into different artists and their work styles, and how they used it to depict mental illness. I'm interested in doing some surrealistic style works for my project so I looked for artists who were similar. One artist I found that I am interested in is Wyatt Mills, who I will continue to look into. I particularly like how he uses organic forms, shape, color, and brush stroke to portray his figures. (His website: https://wyattmills.com/gallery/).