Identity
This series explores the feeling of lacking an identity and desperately trying to find one to call my own. I’ve collected a group of people who have either influenced me or that I’ve associated myself with growing up, and painted them in black and white. By overlaying one of my own features, offset and enlarged, I hoped the result would be an uncanny look. The background is painted a solid color, each relating to whatever color I associate with that person. By doing this, I aimed to keep the focus on the figure, so that the background wouldn’t be too distracting. I wanted the paintings to be overwhelming and somewhat confusing with the overlapping and distorted features. All the paintings are meant to be viewed together so that the cohesiveness between them is apparent. The last painting in the series is an unnerving amalgamation of all the features I’ve taken from the black and white figures put onto my face. I wanted this final painting to embody the overall feeling behind each painting, confused and desperate, with my one single eye peeking out between the other eyes giving it the look of a mask.
