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.