Curatorial Rationale
I want my art to express emotions by using fiction. My Big Idea is Character Development through Emotions. The idea for my artworks is to focus on real life situations using fiction. I made works by using mixed media. Going into this I knew I had to be creative as I needed to be because there were materials that wouldn’t go well with others. My first piece, “Phases of Life”, was an attempt to explore various emotions, more like phases that one goes through in life. I used one of my characters of my original series, Levi Rojas, to convey my work. I felt like his story was touching because he went through a lot and it seems more realistic, related to real life situations. On the artwork, I used book pages as the background as a way to reflect on storytelling of the character. To create the character, I used markers and acrylic paint to draw out the faces Levi would make from description. I think this artwork is one of the strongest pieces ever made. It helped think to create my other work and so on. My next work, “No Control”, is a mix media that consists of colored pencil and acrylic paint. I wasn’t sure if painting was going to work for this piece because I’m bad at making skin color paint, so I chose to use colored pencils instead. In this artwork, I used the main character of the series, Melanie Eilla, a girl who is going to have a life change, because her life can be related to real life problems, in the case, her life being planned before she does, and then finding out she’s a demon. She basically lived a life as a human but then has to be introduced to the demon life. I divided the paper into two sections, one to show her human side and the other as a demon. I painted the background with a dark color to shine her character and the dim spot she was placed in. The elements and principles I used for my work are lines, value, and color, including pattern. It was influenced by Kara Walker and Anna Rose Bien, whom I was inspired to make one of my artworks, “Escaping Reality” and somewhat on ”Escape Reality Part 2”. I loved the way they exhibit figures and use some sort of storytelling. These were also used for the rest of my artwork for my exhibition. It was interesting using these on my work because I was good at mixing and I wanted to expand on that skill. My other work, “Masked Feelings”, is an attempt to use markers, a difficult media that I can rarely use. This artwork I’m now focused on covering emotions, where people tend to hide their true feelings and covering it with a fake one. I added as many masks as possible with different face features that displayed many emotions with colors that fitted them. My two strongest works can be “Phases in Life” and “Low Feelings”, separate pieces but influenced by emotions. I was engrossed by the idea of making artwork with the topic of emotions, it was tricky, but I was able to come up with many ideas to display the topic. I did a lot of research of artwork related to my Big Idea topic and there weren’t any examples, so I had to come up with ways to construct my pieces. I made faces based on the description I wrote about my character. I used a blank white background and book pages to bring out storytelling. I used a dark color as the background, “Low Feelings”, to bring attention to the clocks and arrows that portrays time and low feelings of people. All these works connect with my big idea because each presents emotions of all sorts with the situations it’s based on. My work has been inspired by emotions, the dark and light colors that overcomes us has been used on my pieces in the exhibition. I put a lot of thought and time on all my works because my Big Idea was a bit hard and something different from other artists. My idea for my exhibition was something that was difficult to create. Emotions aren’t really showing in art when making a character development on a figure. There were failures during the process, but I solved it by adding more to it. The continuing artworks have two parts but the last one I had no other idea, so I added an artwork that was outside of my works for this project that fits well for exhibition and the topic. |
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Title: Masked Emotions
Medium: Markers and Ballpoint Pen Size: 11 in x 8.5 in Intentions: Human beings tend to hide their true emotions by covering it up with a mask of a different mood. In the middle of the artwork there’s a box that has various types of mask representing an emotion with a color. In each corner, it has an arm sticking out, wearing an item that assumes the role of their feelings. I’m using fiction to associate with emotions and real life situations. |
Title: Escaping Reality
Medium: Acrylic and Watercolor paint Size: 9.25 in x 8 in Intention: The basis of this artwork is focused on the reality of struggles in people’s life. How one can envision their future and their current state. When one is in their own dark moments they think of ways to feel happy and free. In this piece the hands holding the ball is viewing their troubles, visioning themselves wanting to escape them. The main color chosen is purple, it represents confusion and stress, the mood of artwork. |
Title: Escaping Reality Part 2
Medium: Acrylic Paint on Canvas Size: 10 in x 7 in Intention: In this piece of artwork it’s a continuation of Escaping Reality. The focus is the feeling of liberation. Where a person is now set free and being able to do anything they want. The background color is yellow, it’s mood is happiness. In the middle, there are birds that surround the girl as she is floating in the air with as mild on her face. On the right side of her is a cloud that she is passing through along with the birds. Sign of feeling free. |
Title: Low Feelings
Medium: Acrylic paint and colored pencil on paper Size: 10 in x 7in Intention: In this artwork, the focus is time management and how it is a difficult task for people. Stress builds up when there’s a lot of work placed in our hands especially high schoolers and college students, or when there’s a test coming up and x amount of pages for an essay, especially those summative ones. The red and yellow arrows are the movements of a person trying to work on each task. The background color is dark grey, it represents the mood of stress and exhaustion. The couple of rust clocks on the figures on the artwork, it displays the time for due dates or time of working. |
Title: Masked Emotions Part 2
Medium: Graphite and Pen on paper Size: 10 in x 7 in Intention: This is a continuation of ‘Masked Emotions’ and in this piece of artwork, it’s focused on emotions, how one feels inside and shows a different feeling on the outside. The girl used in the drawing is calm on the outside (blue) and yelling on the inside (red). This drawing can be made with different emotions. People can feel any way and show a dissimilar feeling physically. |
Title: Empty Feeling Medium: Colored pencil and Graphite on paper Size: 26 in x 12 in Intention: In this artwork, it is focused more on the animal's side. The key represents the destruction of animals' lives. The animals are light. Here, the idea is to bring light on a harsh topic that needs attention. Animals' feelings and life get couped away, the light once shining in their eyes disappear because they now fear and are not loved. These beings are kept in small cages and are often hurt or malnourished. I used colored pencils on the animals to portray ‘light’ while graphite is ‘darkness’. |