Self Portrait Performance

 

  

            This topic came to mind because it is a huge issue that I've been seeing every day now that I have been in Washington DC for the past month. Throughout the city, there are homeless people everywhere and some have gathered in tents in parks and even near the Nations Capitol.  

I have never seen this amount of homeless people in such a small area. Although there are homeless shelters they are still a lot of people living on the streets. During shifts, there has been a lot of encounter with homeless people and those who were on drugs. 

                Washington D.C. is an expensive city to live in with a high cost of living especially in the downtown areas near the Capitol. The city has put money into homeless shelters and they have been getting filled up. I never knew homelessness was a huge problem until I saw a tent city about 2 blocks from the Capitol building with a group of homeless people staying in tents. The city has been trying to move them away from the area but as you go around the city, there are more tents scattered around the city and homeless people sitting outside on sidewalks with a few of their belongings. 

               I believe these people are here in the city because they believe they would find better opportunities. They believe that there is more money downtown because there are more people, especially those who are wealthy or financially stable. In reality, downtown is not so the best place to look for opportunities especially coming from homelessness. There are more corporate jobs and higher-end jobs in the city than if you were to branch out a little. Then again there needs to be some time of organization to start getting homeless people jobs than just let them suffer in the city that represents America.

John Berger

                "A painting can speak to the soul - by way of what it referred to, but never by the way it                   envisaged."(Page 87)

                    "The art of any culture will show a wide differential of talent. But in no other culture is the            difference between 'masterpiece' and average work so large as in the tradition of oil painting."               (Page 88)

                    "The gaze of the ambassadors is both aloof and warry. They expect no reciprocity. They               wish the image of their presence to impress others with their vigilance and their distance."(Page            97)

  

Jaz Graf

        Although I was unable to attend Jaz Graf's virtual presentation, I did take the time to look more into her background and her work. It is interesting that she is able to take organic material and make something so beautiful. After looking into her pieces on Instagram I realized that she worked with print, bookwork, drawing and sculpted paper. Her technique with making her art pieces through paper makes her work that much more unique and different from other artists. The piece above is my personal favorite of all her art work. I also enjoy how her pieces have different color correlations and plan on seeing more of her work hopefully sometime soon.  

Self Portrait Project

Andy Warhol

                                                                    

                                                                    Jean Michel Basquiat

Amy Sherald

    When creating my self portrait collage I thought of Jean Michel Basquiat and Amy Sherald. I feel as though Jean Michel Basquiat has a fun sense of color and playfulness in his pieces and though I personally perfer black and white photos or pieces, his choices of color tend to have my eyes interested. Amy Sherald self portraits are empowering and so detailed. Even seems that feel like you're meeting these people through her paintings.My project addresses the themes we have spoken throughout our classes because it stems from the empowerment of women. Although I would not go on to consider my self a feminist, I do believe in women equality and self encouragement. I stand for abuse against women and how the topic as such should be talked over more. I also love that the idea of flowers automatically stick to the concept of women which is funny. When you think flowers, you think more female and I will personally take that stereotype. The media also loves portraying feminine products that surround it self with things such as flowers, almost to make that topic more sensitive or soft. My project speaks to my identity because I feel like flowers are strong and they bloom even after much time through darkness such as winter. In many ways I feel like I relate to that simple concept of growth and leaving the past in the past. 

                                                                                                    Quotes :

                                                                   Wangechi Mutu: A New Face for the Met

"It is testament to her belief that, like street theater or religious rituals, art can nudge viewers toward congregation."

The one thing that’s always missing — I think it’s part of the trauma — is the personal element. My parents don’t often talk about their experiences in terms of how it made them feel.”

                                    An Illustrated Guide to Guy Debord’s ‘The Society of the Spectacle’

It can be found on every screen that you look at. It is the advertisements plastered on the subway and the pop-up ads that appear in your browser. It is the listicle telling you “10 things you need to know about ‘x.’” 

"Images influence our lives and beliefs on a daily basis; advertising manufactures new desires and aspirations."

skyline self portrait

    

 For my final project I chose to challenge myself and do a painting , I had decided to do one of the "skyline view" there is a park by my house that has great scenery at night and I visit it quite often. I decided to focus on the skyline view because earlier in the year I had moved to Clifton and although The house was a lot nicer than my last house I felt very out of place because I lived here in Jersey City my entire life. When I had returned back to Jersey City to stay with my Grandma I couldn't help but appreciate being home so much more. Another reason why I chose to center my project around the skyline is because at one point New York was the epicenter of the corona virus pandemic which not only changed my life but everyone else's lives in such an abrupt manner. I felt as though with the view of New York not only could I capture my apparition for the City landscape but also capture a something that a lot of others can relate to in some capacity as well. The artist that inspired me was Andrew Lenaghan was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey in 1965. He received a BFA from Cornell University in 1987, and an MFA from Brooklyn College in 1989. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York and is a professor of painting at the Pratt Institute. Lenaghan’s artwork display his sense of observation of the places and people around him. He too has a portrait of New York and its a very realistic portrait and it captures a view of New York so well and I wanted to try my hand at doing that as well. But once I had started painting on the canvas I stopped trying to convey directly what I was seeing directly but using what I was being as an avenue to have fun and be unique. I connected this project to the class readings cause one quote that stood out to me was " To photograph, is to capture" now although a painting is not a photograph I believe that it can also capture things in its own way. When it comes to the other artwork I did in this class I feel like what sets this one apart from the rest would be level of sentimental value it has to me. Coming back home from a place that made me unhappy was feeling that took the weight of the world on my shoulders and I feel as though this painting shows that because with a painting I went the furthest out of my comfort zone.

Selfie With Andy Warhol / Self Care

Andy Warhol 

Inspired by Andy Warhol, my self care routine consists of skin care and anything involving aromatherapy such as candles or lotions. After anxiety spiked once pandemic began, I began trying to find new and different ways to help cope through difficult moments, and skin care and self care has help ease many nerves. 

Quotes: 

"This is a turning point, a stage of development, and an observable defining moment when individuals come to think of themselves in a new way" ( The Art of Self Invention, Chapter 2, Pg 81)

"Every audience must think about whether the individuals's performance is convincing or not." ( The Art of Self Invention, Chapter 2, Pg. 93)

"At minimum the self is bifurcated, it has a double; there is the conscious and unconscious, private and public, civilized and base, good and bad, and we can create ourselves as well-rounded beings from the management of these seemingly opposed elements." (The Art of Self Invention, Chapter 3, Pg. 126)

"The idea that character and personality are both immanent in appearance still exerts a strong influence even though it is riddled with ambiguities" (The Art of Self Invention, Chapter 3, Pg. 129)

Seflie with Mickalene Thomas

Mickalene Thomas 

Kathleen DaSilva 

Quotes from John Berger

Chapters 2 & 3 

"Every one of her actions- whatever its direct purpose or motivation- is also read as an indication of how she would like to be treated" (Pg. 47)

"But this has been at the cost of a woman's self being split into two" (Pg. 46)

"But the essential way of seeing a women, the essential use to which their images are put, has not changed. Women are depicted in a quite different way from men" (Pg. 64)

Final project

being percieved 

For my final project I wanted to use conceptual portraits to convey how the male gaze is not only enacted under patriarchal social standards, but how I contribute to maintaining the male gaze. I was inspired by Ana Mendieta's use of close shot photography of herself, twisting her features to express a separation of her body from a social tool of race and gender. She sees her body more in relation to the land, a sense of origin and functionality. Both connect her to her Cuban-American roots. She embraces her femininity while exploring the boundaries of gender.

 Another artist that inspired my final piece was Mickalene Thomas, who uses rich colors, patterns, and textures to convey her relationship to femininity and race in her portraits of black women. I referenced her bold color tones and pattern choices when painting my own image on my face. My favorite of her works was Le déjeuner sur l’herbe: les trois femmes noires, which is a reference to a famous french painting depicting a naked woman having a picnic in the park with two fully clothed men. The scenes’ absurdity of one naked woman among clothed men is overlooked. She has become an object of the spectacle of the male gaze. Mickalene Thomas’ portrait depicts three black women looking back at the viewer as if interrupted, turning the gaze back onto the viewer. This portrait reminded me that just because I’m a woman aware of the standard of our visual and sexual society has objectified our bodies, does not make me exempt from also perceiving people through the male gaze.

How we see each other and ourselves in relation to each other ultimately controls our reality. Media plays into this by carefully controlling what and how we see within our society. This is known as the spectacle according to Guy Debord, a French philosopher. “The spectacle is not a collection of images, it is a social relation between people that is mediated between images.”(the society of the spectacle).

This absolutely includes myself and how I present my own femininity to be perceived by others. To convey this concept in my self portrait, I used pink and blue acrylic paint to represent male (gaze) and female (in the context of the male gaze) because the two colors are very universally used for gender. The base color is pink to show how I present myself in gender conforming femininity. (meaning I make myself appeal to the male gaze). My own internalized male gaze is shown in both the blue paint on my forehead where the mind's eye  is typically depicted, and surrounding my eyes, which I wanted to emphasize with lines and dots emanating around each eye.

When photographing myself, I ended up taking head on pictures to show both confronting myself and the viewer on our own contribution to the male gaze. In an interview Mickalene Thomas said “To see yourself and for others to see you is a form of validation and I'm interested in that very mysterious mystical line that is how we relate to each other in the world” (ARTINFO interview).

This final project is different from my first self portrait projects because I took a lot more liberties in presenting the themes in my pictures as my own rather than replicating the works shown. I believe that  I pushed myself not only in the class, but as an art major I was given the opportunity to explore more styles and techniques with less pressure of technicality. I feel more confident to push my own creative boundaries in future works.

ARTINFO interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2tJKAfyVhs 

The society of the spectacle pt. 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsHtSPub3w8

    

SELF-PORTRAIT FINAL PROJECT

    The subjects for my final project are self- identity, self-love and trauma. During my years of taking art due school, I have never been the best a painting nor drawing and for me the best way for me was to create a collage mixed with painting (I tried my best). While creating this piece I was stuck due all the ideas I wanted to be represented as final project. When I finally had a clear idea of what I wanted was easy to put it into fragments in the canvas. My major inspiration was Mickalene Thomas, her art is based of black female identity, celebrity, and sexuality. Which gave me an idea, her usually style is black female identity, but I instead painted a woman in red as for me it means passion/love in my life, that woman in the sofa is me. The sofa, I decided to paint black, as the trauma, depression & isolation I went through. The pillows are green as for me it meant hope. And this is the story of my life, I grew up in a loving household raised by my grandparents which taught me how to love two strangers that I called “mom” and “dad”. Always judged my grandparents decisions and though them raising me it was going to be the best idea. Due their immaturity and hate to each other, they ended up creating an emotionally unstable person. The two pillows as they mean hope and I drew them as my grandparents because of them they help me to move on and became the person I am today. The background has a lot of meaning, the right side has a meaning as the younger version of me tried to run away to set herself free from all the pain she felt during her childhood. The left side is more of a physical appearance, everyone has their beauty in their own way. Beauty doesn’t mean a certain shape, color, type of eyes or a certain race. “Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Beholder” and I always keep that in mind. During my first self-portraits and this self-portrait there’s more confident on my work and what I am doing so far. Learning to all the artist during this semester has taught me that everyone has a different way of expressing art and whoever isn’t happy oh well. I have learned that even media kind of controls the way we want to see ourselves because that’s how “it is support to be” for example, stretch marks, body hair, gaining weight and others, are topics that a lot of people need to fix themselves because in the eyes of others it is not acceptable. Happiness should be your priority before unwanted comments from strangers.  

Quotes

Ways of seeing by John Berger
“To be born a woman has been to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men. The presence of women has developed as a result of their ingenuity in living under such tutelage within such a limited space. But this has been at the cost of a woman's self being split into two. A woman must continually watch herself.” (chapter 3, pg. 46)

When Artists Create Flags 

“She explores the potential made possible through our own mutual cooperation. Possibly holding a piece of the sky, these birds remind us that we must work together.”

Susan Sontag- On Photography

“To collect photographs is to collect the world.” 

Final Self-portrait

Discovering myself

“I think that little by little I’ll be able to solve my problems and survive.”

“She had the courage to be unique… she was able to be free”

“He said you have talent.”

“Over the centuries links have been asserted between the shape of the head, or eyebrows, lips, ears, fingers, and the counterpart characteristics of intelligence, character, moral rectitude, perversity and criminality.” (the art of self-invention p.123)

“Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak.” (Ways of seeing p.7)

“An image is a sight which has been recreated or reproduced.” (Ways of seeing p.9)

Inspired by Frida Kahlo, she went through an accident that damaged her spine and gave her multiple fractions that made her incapable of moving and forced her to stay at her house, sitting on her chair for a long time. That long time inspired her to start painting. During this period most of her paintings were portraits using a mirror in her room.

During this last year of the pandemic, I felt just like Frida that I am trapped, and I need to spend my time on something precious, she inspired me to focus more on discovering myself and appreciating the things I have, which sometimes I do not even notice they exist. Knowing more about Frida made me start thinking about my identity, my family, my friends, places I love to visit, outings and gatherings, worshiping, and an endless list of things that formed who I am.

Frida used painting to express herself, to discover who she was, and set her soul to be free. For me, I was thinking about who I am when I looked into my mirror, what are the things that formed my personality and identity. Then, I started doodling my thoughts and searching for my old pictures and go through my memories searching for what made me happy in the past. I choose pictures of things that Identify me also, I chose what I missed during the pandemic and hoping that I can get it back soon. At that moment, I have put everything together in graphic prints and collages. I, then, sat in front of a mirror and highlighted my face with my collected prints.

I noticed my self-portrait for the final project is hugely different from my first three self-portraits. At the beginning of this class, I always wanted to choose portraits that did not show my face. I wanted portraits that can least showed me and my facial expressions, my favorite was the ones that showed me from further and showed the least possible details. Though, for my final self-portrait, I chose a portrait that highlights my face. I wanted to show who I am.

Citation:

·        Hollywoodstreams, director. Salma Hayek in 2002 - Frida Interview. YouTube, YouTube, 30 Apr. 2009, www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1R0T5MOR2s&t=18s.

·        Frakdox, director. Frida Kahlo Biography - (2 of 6). YouTube, YouTube, 20 Jan. 2009, www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH_S3nAPTdY.

·        Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. BBC and Penguin, 1972.

·        Finkelstein, Joanne. The Art of Self Invention: Image and Identity in Popular Visual Culture. I.B. Tauris, 2007.

·        Dunne, Carey. “The Photographed, Collaged and Painted Muses of Mickalene Thomas.” Hyperallergic, 5 Mar. 2016, hyperallergic.com/278045/the-photographed-collaged-and-painted-muses-of-mickalene-thomas/.

•       -, Flavia Medrut, et al. “17 Frida Kahlo Quotes to Inspire You to Turn Pain Into Beauty.” Goalcast, 8 Apr. 2021, www.goalcast.com/2017/11/28/17-frida-kahlo-quotes/. 

 

Self Care

I went on a walk through the park as a form of self-care. 

 

Final Self- Portrait

 

    My final project is a relationship between media and the consumer. I got inspiration from the Society of the Spectacle. In today’s digital and mass marketing age, headlines are everywhere we look, from our timelines, news applications, billboards, advertisements, and magazines. Headlines and titles are what capture our attention and will help in the decision of whether we click or not. Headlines themselves can also play a part in how the article is interpreted, eye-catching or shocking headlines will capture an audience’s attention that will cause them to think before they read anything in the body of an article. Many times on our timelines, people share their thoughts or opinions on articles and papers they have not read, solely based on the headline or title. I chose to paint and collage as a medium because it allowed me to incorporate headlines and article titles into my work. 

     Society of a Spectacle encouraged my decisions in this piece. The black and white crowd photo displays uniformity and creates a relationship between the individuals in the crowd. They all sit in rows to observe the same subject. In this case, this crowd of individuals is watching headlines, in a similar way that we would. Each person is their own individual being, but they all still watch the same thing. The same way our timelines have their own algorithms, but we always see the same headlines. 

     A major influence on the changes was the readings and the artist we studied. Mickalene Thomas collaged together photos of black women to share their personal stories, instead of the narratives that have been produced from media. "By portraying real women with their own unique history, beauty and background, I’m working to diversify the representations of black women in art". Amy Sherald wants the insert herself into the world and focuses on painting black people in colorful environments, "It does in light of the artist’s drive to, in her words, seek “versions of myself in art history and in the world.”. The Society of the Spectacle helps tie in Thomas and Sherald because it gives an explanation to how these representations and creates this “reality”. “Images influence our lives and beliefs on a daily basis; advertising manufactures new desires and aspirations.” 

     Media and its images have a major influence on identity and self-presentation. These major companies put out advertisements, sponsored videos, create movies, and form this ideal lifestyle that the consumer should want to live. Media forms this “reality”  and pumps it to the public everywhere, which influences people to conform to it. This desired lifestyle is fed to the public everywhere so much that it becomes our conversations and starts to develop into the “normal”. The Spectacle helps explain how these “realities” affect the identity of a person, “The alienation of the spectator, which reinforces the contemplated objects that result from his own unconscious activity, works like this: the more he contemplates, the less he lives; the more he identifies with the dominant images of need, the less he understands his own life and his own desires”. 
       Society of a Spectacle encouraged my decisions in this piece. The black and white crowd photo displays uniformity and creates a relationship between the individuals in the crowd. They all sit in rows to observe the same subject. In this case, this crowd of individuals is watching headlines, in a similar way that we would. Each person is their own individual being, but they all still watch the same thing. The same way our timelines have their own algorithms, but we always see the same headlines. 

     A major influence on the changes was the readings and the artist we studied. Mickalene Thomas collaged together photos of black women to share their personal stories, instead of the narratives that have been produced from media. "By portraying real women with their own unique history, beauty and background, I’m working to diversify the representations of black women in art". Amy Sherald wants the insert herself into the world and focuses on painting black people in colorful environments, "It does in light of the artist’s drive to, in her words, seek “versions of myself in art history and in the world.”. The Society of the Spectacle helps tie in Thomas and Sherald because it gives an explanation to how these representations and creates this “reality”. “Images influence our lives and beliefs on a daily basis; advertising manufactures new desires and aspirations.” 

     Media and its images have a major influence on identity and self-presentation. These major companies put out advertisements, sponsored videos, create movies, and form this ideal lifestyle that the consumer should want to live. Media forms this “reality”  and pumps it to the public everywhere, which influences people to conform to it. This desired lifestyle is fed to the public everywhere so much that it becomes our conversations and starts to develop into the “normal”. The Spectacle helps explain how these “realities” affect the identity of a person, “The alienation of the spectator, which reinforces the contemplated objects that result from his own unconscious activity, works like this: the more he contemplates, the less he lives; the more he identifies with the dominant images of need, the less he understands his own life and his own desires”. Society of a Spectacle encouraged my decisions in this piece. The black and white crowd photo displays uniformity and creates a relationship between the individuals in the crowd. They all sit in rows to observe the same subject. In this case, this crowd of individuals is watching headlines, in a similar way that we would. Each person is their own individual being, but they all still watch the same thing. The same way our timelines have their own algorithms, but we always see the same headlines.

     A major influence on the changes was the readings and the artist we studied. Mickalene Thomas collaged together photos of black women to share their personal stories, instead of the narratives that have been produced from media. "By portraying real women with their own unique history, beauty and background, I’m working to diversify the representations of black women in art". Amy Sherald wants the insert herself into the world and focuses on painting black people in colorful environments, "It does in light of the artist’s drive to, in her words, seek “versions of myself in art history and in the world.”. The Society of the Spectacle helps tie in Thomas and Sherald because it gives an explanation to how these representations and creates this “reality”. “Images influence our lives and beliefs on a daily basis; advertising manufactures new desires and aspirations.” 

     Media and its images have a major influence on identity and self-presentation. These major companies put out advertisements, sponsored videos, create movies, and form this ideal lifestyle that the consumer should want to live. Media forms this “reality”  and pumps it to the public everywhere, which influences people to conform to it. This desired lifestyle is fed to the public everywhere so much that it becomes our conversations and starts to develop into the “normal”. The Spectacle helps explain how these “realities” affect the identity of a person, “The alienation of the spectator, which reinforces the contemplated objects that result from his own unconscious activity, works like this: the more he contemplates, the less he lives; the more he identifies with the dominant images of need, the less he understands his own life and his own desires”. 

Society of the Spectacle- Guy Debord's
Mickalene Thomas- Mickalene Thomas -Photographed, Collaged, and Painted Muses 
Amy Sherald-  The Amy Sherald Effect

"Lady In Red" Final Selfie Project

 

Lady in Red (2021) - original oil pastel piece by Zahria Thomas 

                                                                             The Make Believer (Monet's Garden 2016) - Amy Sherald

My project is a self portrait inspired by Amy Sherald. She was the first artist I thought of when I received this project. From the first time she was introduced to us in class, I was intrigued by her and her art style. I love how the backgrounds of her paintings embrace the melanin of her inspirations. She really embraces the fact that Black is Beautiful. I particularly love how simple yet detailed her pictures are. The more you look at them the more things you notice about it. 

In the painting I chose to recreate, it looks like a regular orange background with a black woman on it but as you keep looking you notice the red in the background, the kinks in her afro, the definition in her arms and the details in her dress. I absolutely loved this piece. When I was deciding how to recreate it I thought about what picture of mine resembled the piece the most. After scrolling through my Instagram I found this picture I took about 2 weeks ago and it was perfect. 

What I used to create my project was oil pastels on canvas. I initially wanted to use acrylic paint but the ones I purchased ended up being too light. This was the first time I worked with oil pastels and it was honestly so fun. The creaminess of the pastels made it very easy to blend and work with. For the background I used three different colors and for the dress I used two. I chose to make the background blue because I wanted the color of my dress and skin to pop.I wanted it to convey the message of through all the darkness I will shine bright and be as colorful as I could be. 

In my first self portrait I utilized my body, physical objects and black and white. In my final project I wanted to do a more cartoon feel with vibrant colors. I also wanted to challenge myself to use a tool that I never used before. I also challenged myself to blend. It was a technique that I always found very difficult but I wanted to explore it since it was my final project. I have also always found it hard to do faces and facial expressions but Amy Sherald made me want to try. My absolute favorite part of my interpretation is my dress. I feel like the dress is so well blended and it represents my dress well.

Quotes:

Carrie Mae Weems “Kitchen Table Series”

“But it was also a seminal moment for Black representation in art, influencing an entire generation of artists who rarely saw their own selves reflected back on museum walls”

Mickalene Thomas -Photographed, Collaged and Painted Muses

 “By selecting women of color, I am quite literally raising their visibility and inserting their presence into the conversation,

FINAL SELFIE PROJECT

 

   The subject and theme of my final project has to do with expressing emotions, pain and your dark humor. This is my final selfie project which I chose to do a photoshoot into a collage type thing because I knew I can relate to the selfies she would do and what the meaning is. I also loved how Frida expressed herself in the portraits. Which Frida Kahlo inspired me to do this shoot. This process was very inspiring since Frida is one of my favorite artists and I had two different outfit changes plus the flower crown to add on to which Frida always had on her. The flower crown is what defined her as an artist. But I did go to a lot of stores and find materials for the flower crown to make it similar to Fridas. I also added some color lipstick to my lips since she always had red lipstick on as well. The backdrop to the last picture was also photo shopped because I could not find a flower backdrop anywhere. The flower jumper I picked out because Frida had used a-lot of flowers in her portraits and since I did not have a backdrop with flowers I decided to not go with a flower outfit. The blazer was to sort of cover myself as Frida had in some of her pictures she never had pictures that show much skin. I was inspired with these three different pictures of Frida Kahlo because her portraits and her as an artist she expresses herself with in her artwork are symbols and metaphors that reflect her emotions, her pain and anguish, even her dark humour. . Also her self portraits each one of them valued a moment of her life or a political issue in her home country which was Mexico. This selfie collage conveys to the audience and viewers as knowing to understand what someone has been through but not expressing through conversations but yet artwork and self portraits the way they pose, present themselves in the portraits goes a long way. The difference between my first three selfies and my final is I changed outfits and more value through portraits as too adding more effects and background into it so my selfie can pop out more. Also for the final I took some time to think about what kind of outfits I am going to use as even backdrops into it. Something that influences this change was my professor because she was giving me ideas as she showed me a flower crown that one of her students made in one of her previous classes and she made one for herself as well so the student gave the professor one and used one for her project. She also told me to think outside the box as I previously told her I was going to end up painting instead. I do feel like I learned a lot with the different artists we discussed. I was interested in most of the artists which I put more effort in than others and it helped me learn more about myself. The media and its images influence identity and self presentation because no matter what someone is going to say something about you and the media is a huge part of this since everyone believes what they put on social media is always true. Posting on social media something different than what you are as a person in real life is also the big deal.

                                                                    Quotes 

    "The tradition, however, still forms many of our cultural assumptions. It defines what we mean by pictorial likeness. Its norms still affect the way we see such subjects as landscape, women, food, dignitaries, mythology". Pg 84 

"The rules of etiquette can appear frivolous and superficial ; they are, after all, not obviously related to the important activities of commerce and politics. Yet they are the medium through which everyday instrumental and pragmatic activities are expressed". (Pg 77) 

"It minimum the self is bifurcated, it has a double ; there is the conscious and unconscious, private and public, civilized and base, good and bad, and we can create ourselves as well-rounded beings from the management of these seemingly opposed elements. (Pg 126) 

Final Self Portrait

                              

Barbara Kruger 

    When exploring ideas for an artist to reflect on the final portrait assignment, I decided to choose Barbara Kruger, as mentioned to me in class. The context of my portrait revolves around the critiquing of feminist imagery. Barbara Kruger became a top choice for this project because her trademark style presented interesting choices of images, paired with raw, vocal messages. That is why I chose the photo I'm presenting, alongside with the vocal message. When deciding on the artist, I first went into researching more about Barbara Kruger, about her life, her story and most importantly, her art pieces. I then thought about a message that has a deeper meaning to myself and something I live by. I chose this specific photo of myself because it was at a point of my life where I started to mute negative energy sent off by other people. I was 100% invested in bettering my lifestyle as a whole.    

    From this self portrait, the audience will convey the significance of self care and how a vision can put you in a better direction. The difference between this self portrait verses the others is that this piece was my favorite this far. I think it became one of my favorite assignments because I became very interested with Barbara Kruger and her art pieces fairly quickly and it was easy to relate to her type of message in a somewhat sarcastic form. It's important to understand that media and it's images influence identity and self presentation. Whether it's through body shamming or what society thinks if morally right from wrong. Society alone can be the hardest critic and will have many feeling they can not be their true sense of themselves. That our happiness is what we need and want it to be rather than what others think is best for us. I feel that from this particular artist I've learned that being straight forward does not necessarily mean it is always a negative thing. 

Quotes:

Joanne Finkelstein 

"She convinced him of her general state of anxiety, of her fear of degradation, loss of reputation and social marginalization that would result from a simple slip in her performance." (The Art of Self Invention, Chapter 1, Pg. 53)

"It reflected the growing interest in what we understand now as the psychological dimension of social life and it demonstrated the necessity of all individuals, in every social situation, to take account of their effect on others. ( The Art of Self Invention, Chapter 2, Pg. 86)

"Can we still operate with confidence when we know that the rules of the game are such that everyone is inventing themselves? How do we imagine the self after we recognize the various levels of social detachment, interior fragmentation and role invention that each of us achieve?  (The Art of Self Invention, Chapter 1, Pg, 68)

A change - Final project

 

kehinde wiley - selfie

 

    I enjoyed doing this selfie portrait inspired by Kehinde Wiley. She uses flowers her portraits and different things that are super vibrant. In which I chose the background that I did which has a whole bunch of nature in the back but still vibrant till this day I get compliments on this picture. 

Quotes for this selfie are under other selfie I did 

Mickalene Thomas - Elysha Torres

     Bell hooks Understanding Patriarchy

        

"Patriarchy is a political- social system that insists that male are inherently dominating, superior to everything and everyone deemed weak, especially females, and endowed with the right to dominate and rule over the weak and to maintain that dominance through various forms of psychological terrorism and violence" 

“As their daughter I was taught that it was my role to serve, to be weak to be free from the burden of thinking, to caretake and nurture others.” 

Bell hooks The Oppositional Gaze 

"The movements the attitude the glances of the Other fixed me there in the sense in which a chemical solution is fixed by a dye"

"When most black people in the United States first had the opportunity to look at the film and television they did so fully aware that mass media was a system of knowledge and power reproducing and maintaining white supremacy"