Although my midterm project was self created, Peter Clark’s work actually uses a similar technique and has many beautiful collage animals silhouettes made out of unused paper. One of which is titled "Smoked Fish III."
In class we have discussed and got familiar with the word "Identity" and what it means in a more depth sense. We see through Cindy Sherman's work that identity doesn't necessarily mean being one's literal self, the characters she created herself to be are part of who she is. For my midterm, I tried to focus on the broad topic of identity, and who I am by using one of the words that describe me when we did the Frida Kahlo exercise a couple weeks ago. Visible to the naked eye is a galaxy like background with the Leo constellation on the left corner and selectively picked pictures collage together to form a lion’s head silhouette. The lion for as long as I can remember is always associated with very positive powerful words such as brave, powerful, fearless.
Associating myself to the word fearless is a bit odd to think about in literal sense because there are a lot of things that I fear; but in a more meaningful sense, I have achieved many big/small milestones and have people in my life that make me feel fearless. What better way to show that by replacing a lion’s face to my own and it’s mane to be those achievements/loved ones/and even dreams that make me feel fearless. Beginning from the very top of the mane are the dreams I wish to reach in the near future, that being a police officer or continuing my military career full time. I say this as being fearless because in order to really be apart of these groups, you have to be mentally strong and physically capable at all times. Going clockwise, some milestones would be graduating High School and being able to lead as president for the National Honor Society my senior year. I personally believe that these milestones we create in our life time are the ones that keep us going to want to achieve more, but none of that is possible without emotional support. This is why the next section is all about my family and my partner. The support they have provided has always made me feel like I can accomplish anything and nothing or nobody can stop me. It's a great feeling, a fearless feeling. Following that is one of things I am very fortunate of being part of. When I graduated, I knew I wanted to do something other than school, but I also knew I needed a back up plan in case something went terribly wrong. So I decided to enlist into NJ's National Guard to follow my own path but remain in school to have something to lean back on. Going through all that training and having to fend for myself for 7 months really put things into perspective for me at 18 and I've never felt more fearless. The next and last section is also a sense of support, but something I tend to look back at for when I need to remind myself what I am capable of. Starting high school, I was very closed in and reluctant to really speak out. I was fortunate enough to be selected to be in a group that its overall goal was to be the peer mediators of the school. But in doing so it required me to find myself, and really blossom. I don't think I would be so in touch with my emotions and have the mindset I have now if it wasn't for that experience.
But although I might feel on top of the world at times, the reason the background is galaxy like is because space is literally huge and lonesome. A recent issue that I presume to be normal for college students is feeling lost and not really knowing what is to come or what to do. I find myself in that predicament a lot for the last couple years and it’s slowly becoming more of an issue as graduation approaches.
I really just want to show the viewers a bit about who I am through the very minimal pictures provided because although they are not all pictures of me, every single person or object in the pictures are a part of who I am. Even though I know what the pictures mean , I'm hoping with the lion silhouette and all, that people can grasp what I was trying to portray without a written meaning for it. Creating this poster was a bit challenging in the sense that I didn't know where I was going with it painting wise, since I have never painted but with the use of sponges and acrylic paint, I think it came out better than expected. The figure itself is thick stencil mounted on top for a more “pop” affect.
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