Self Portrait Artist Statement
Jenna Arvelo
My practice is primarily based in traditional modes of painting; not just that, but specifically specializing in self portraiture. Yet for this project I made a choice to explore a different medium I had little to no prior experience working in. My project turned out to be a short eight minute video I created. I intended for it to be a sort-of collage representing the stream my daily consciousness. I consider this piece as part of the self portrait series I had been creating up till this point for over half a year. So with this in mind, I hoped to create a moving living version of my paintings that embodied the core theme of my self portrait series.
My body of work itself is based self care and the importance of internal health (mind/spirit) and wellness. My paintings represent the duality and multiplicity of self and the importance of nurturing those various facets of self. I did not initially intend for this series to be an act of a political agenda; yet as I made the work, and as I received feedback I realized how much it mattered how viewers interacted with my portraits. I then wanted others to see themselves in my image; particularly for people of color to recognized their own specific internal needs as a means to well being. Particularly because these subjects go on to be neglected as a luxury and not a necessity within my community. This aspect of the series has become particularly relevant as to how I currently make the work.
This series is deeply integrated in self guided spirituality and this exploration of deep seated internal connection to the natural world and created environments. I am creating safe spaces for vulnerability, rawness and healing. I play with the ideas of ritual and repetition as a means to ingrain integral messages within myself and the work. So in this regard the act of making becomes synchronized with the act of praying or affirming. I use multiple self portraits to play with how these selves and forms express interaction and relationships with one another. With is video, it was difficult to express these relationships with the little skill I had in this medium. Yet I feel like I made up for this with the layered scenes gliding into one another blending into the fragmented portraits I included in the video.
What influenced this series varied from visual artists, to books and musical artists. Yet the similarities between them happened to be saturated in spiritual exploration and the expressions of internal and external selves. These influences and inspirations include Solange Knowles, Fka Twigs and authors Caroline Myss, Jerry and Esther Hicks, and Jane Roberts. I created the musical playlist with Knowles in mind directly filtering her influence in the work. Visual artists such as Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Jennifer Packer have had a greater influence on the painting aspect of this series. A more recent inspiration I've enthusiastically added as an addition to this unofficial collective is Hilma Klint, and her explorations and translations of the metaphysical world. I strongly connect to the body of work I'd seen at the Guggenheim Museum. Specifically in the means of how she explores the unknown, translating a symbolic and cryptic language from other dimensions. Such topics are also at the core of my own practice.
TRACK LIST
(as played in order):
Solange - Rise
Solange - Things I Imagined
Solange - Can I Hold the Mic (Interlude)
Solange - Nothing Without Intention (Interlude)
Mosses Sumney - Self-Help Tape
Frank Ocean - Pink + White
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