Cindy Guzman
Usually when I visualize a self portrait I think of how the person physically looks like. Through the process of creating this piece I realized that I finally understood the meaning of identity. It’s not just about how you look or how you act, or how you dress. It’s about all the key factors that made you into the person you are today and how you can always revisit those experiences to have motives behind my actions. This piece is a nostalgic piece related to moments captured in photographs throughout my life that spoke to how I am characteristically. I have always been a happy person and everyone distinguishes me by how I’m always smiling. What they don’t know is that I too go through ups and downs but in extreme waves. Sometimes my smile is actually indicating my nervousness and social anxiety. Neil Postman talks about how childhood is disappearing and the merging of child and adult perspectives are rapidly taking over. The disappearance of childhood and how he said, “childhood is a function of what a culture needs to communicate and the means it has to do so. Although economics, politics, ideology, religion, and other factors affect the course of a childhood - make it more or less important - they cannot create it or expunge it.” Personally I feel as if I grew up too fast so I want to be able to use this project as a piece that will also remind me of my roots and how I’ve constructed my persona. Some of the inspirations that came to mind were. Although almost reaching my mid twenties and having all of society’s infiltrations, I can always revisit my childhood as an escape of my reality. To remind me that the reason why I am the happy person I am today is all tied into this web of love and affection that came from my home. My family is my metaphorical home and it is a sacred space. For my self-portrait semester project I’ve decided to create a collage-style mindmap of photographs from my childhood with short blurbs along with my personal experiences from living in a third world country, Venezuela. Some of the mediums I will be working with is mixed media that consists permanent marker, typography, photo montage collage and spray paint on a canvas. What I want to stick out about my self portrait is how I’ve let my life experiences shape me into the person I am today. The merging of type and image tie into my graphic design career and the idea of creating this visual language to tell a narrative. An artist that influenced this work is Wendy Red Star and her exhibition A Scratch on the Earth. She had a timeline of her culture and also her personal life experiences that wrapped around part of the museum that had a great impact on me not only visually but the writings she added helped understand her narrative. Therefore, I too took in her technique and designed it in this web-like constellation of experiences and moments that tie into who I am and how to find my way back home.
Usually when I visualize a self portrait I think of how the person physically looks like. Through the process of creating this piece I realized that I finally understood the meaning of identity. It’s not just about how you look or how you act, or how you dress. It’s about all the key factors that made you into the person you are today and how you can always revisit those experiences to have motives behind my actions. This piece is a nostalgic piece related to moments captured in photographs throughout my life that spoke to how I am characteristically. I have always been a happy person and everyone distinguishes me by how I’m always smiling. What they don’t know is that I too go through ups and downs but in extreme waves. Sometimes my smile is actually indicating my nervousness and social anxiety. Neil Postman talks about how childhood is disappearing and the merging of child and adult perspectives are rapidly taking over. The disappearance of childhood and how he said, “childhood is a function of what a culture needs to communicate and the means it has to do so. Although economics, politics, ideology, religion, and other factors affect the course of a childhood - make it more or less important - they cannot create it or expunge it.” Personally I feel as if I grew up too fast so I want to be able to use this project as a piece that will also remind me of my roots and how I’ve constructed my persona. Some of the inspirations that came to mind were. Although almost reaching my mid twenties and having all of society’s infiltrations, I can always revisit my childhood as an escape of my reality. To remind me that the reason why I am the happy person I am today is all tied into this web of love and affection that came from my home. My family is my metaphorical home and it is a sacred space. For my self-portrait semester project I’ve decided to create a collage-style mindmap of photographs from my childhood with short blurbs along with my personal experiences from living in a third world country, Venezuela. Some of the mediums I will be working with is mixed media that consists permanent marker, typography, photo montage collage and spray paint on a canvas. What I want to stick out about my self portrait is how I’ve let my life experiences shape me into the person I am today. The merging of type and image tie into my graphic design career and the idea of creating this visual language to tell a narrative. An artist that influenced this work is Wendy Red Star and her exhibition A Scratch on the Earth. She had a timeline of her culture and also her personal life experiences that wrapped around part of the museum that had a great impact on me not only visually but the writings she added helped understand her narrative. Therefore, I too took in her technique and designed it in this web-like constellation of experiences and moments that tie into who I am and how to find my way back home.
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