Frida Kahlo inspired me as an artist because she was a revolutionary female painter who didn't identify with a particular movement. In her eyes, she was an individual and her work pertained specifically to her. Kahlo valued honesty in her paintings, and many of the topics/images present in her paintings would show things other paintings wouldn't, such as:
Salvador Dali also inspired me because he is a well-known Surrealist who specialized in paintings that were absurd and described as images a person may see "when they are starting to wake up" (Michalko). This almost-dreamlike state present in his work connects to how I began to "wake up" and see that pretending to be someone else in order to please others was damaging to my self-esteem and I should embrace who I am. The strange imagery in his work will also connect to my project because I view my past struggles with accepting myself as almost nightmare-ish because it was emotionally damaging to me and made me act in ways that, now, I wouldn’t do in any circumstance. In particular, the contrast of bright and dark hues in the background of this piece and between the foreground and background inspired me because the brilliant color of the sky with a block of black at the top, to me, looked like a beautiful horizon hiding the dark truth. I thought that this color scheme could work in my piece by contrasting bright and dark colors in order to display the differences between my identity and the fake one(s) that I tried to forge over the years. |
This sketch incorporated both of the symbols that I wanted to use in the piece with the puzzle pieces at the torso and flowers covering my face. While I liked how the torso appeared to sort of fade away with the placement of the puzzle pieces, I didn't think that having flowers covering the face communicated the message I wanted.
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This sketch incorporated both of the symbols that I wanted to use in the piece with the flowers surrounding my exterior and my incomplete skull breaking away to reveal a bird to represent how abnormal I thought my identity was compared to others. This was the sketch that I initially wanted to base my piece on, but I changed my mind when I realized that it seemed to convey a message related to outward beauty and intelligence - not the message I wanted to convey.
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This was the sketch that I based my final project around; the flowered headdress is reminiscent of Kahlo's work and contains both flowers and the bird to represent beauty and slight irregularity, while the neck breaks into puzzle pieces that helps symbolize the "perfection" aspect I strived for and also ties in with the strange, nightmare-like works of Dali over the years.
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I used this side profile of me and this small portion of a completed puzzle to create a foundation to build off of. Of all the pictures I took of parts of puzzles, I thought this small portion would be the most easiest to maneuver onto my skull. However, later exploration in my flashdrive showed that I had a photo that would've worked much better on a large surface such as my head - I ended up using that photo for my process because it was less tedious than using copies of this small piece.
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While I knew that I wanted to use sketch #3 as the blueprint for my project, I decided to experiment with sketch #2 in Photoshop because there are so many elements of #2 that are complex, but also present in #3. This way, I could experiment with an outline like #3, without "messing up" the actual #3.
I started off by cropping the portion of the puzzle and my profile out of their respective backgrounds, positioning the pieces over my hairline to try and figure out how I would blend them into my skull. However, I didn't believe that the pieces would blend easily with my head, so I altered the color of myself and the pieces so that they were a more similar color. My experiment with the black/white contrast ended up appealing to me more than I thought it would and I decided to apply this to my process. I then cut part of my skull away and began to cover the top of my head with the puzzle pieces. |
Trying to cover my jaggedly-cropped skull with the tiny puzzle pieces - I was trying to make the pieces interlock, and while it doesn't look too messy from this distance, they did not fit together whatsoever.
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I continued to place puzzle pieces along the outline of my skull, then decided to halt the process to see if the bird that I wanted to place in my skull would fit well. It was at this point that I saw multiple problems, including:
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Abandoning the process of connecting the puzzle pieces and covering them with the cropped bird picture.
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"Perfect Pieces" vs "Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and HummingbirdSimilarities:
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"Perfect Pieces" vs "The Burning Giraffe"Similarities:
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