Self Portrait

For the Self Portrait project, I have created a series of five mixed media collages, that reflect  different scenes and spaces in my life that helped create my identity. In my work I like to make the connections between the emotional, mental and physical world and manifest them in a abstracted and fantastical way, all while presenting my identity as both graphic designer and fine artist. Bridging together the external, internal, reality and fantasy. My goal is to examine the theme of space and constructing identity and how I move in them certain spaces as well discovering additional parts of my identity. 

The series can be read as somewhat of a narrative or retrospective. It is not only from my life but also my family because they helped shape my identity directly and indirectly. Each collage was crafted on BFK paper, Chine Colle paper with gouache paint and ink, and then digitized in photoshop. Color and detail is an extremely important factor in my art I see them both as a medium all their own. For this series I used a color palette of red, blue, white, yellow, orange, black, silver and gold. The use of lines are like connectors and communicators to me. Similar to nerves and veins, they have feeling, the connect, transport information. In a map, they guide you provide direction and help crave or plan out paths.

Collage 1 is an interpretation of an abstracted church. I spent large portion of my life in church and religious and spiritual environments. It is very important to my family. My time and space in church helped to develop many different parts of who I am today. I learned much about the world, positive and negative through church. The colors hot and cold colors represent the duality in what I learned in my space in the church. The mixed messages, different types of personalities of people and how to navigate around or deal with them and the double consciousness of Black Christianity in America. Collage 2 is a narrative of courage, from my childhood that I still mention even in recent years. it was a test of choice and courage. When I was about eight or nine years old, I volunteered to read scripture during an after service event at church. I had practiced diligently the night before, however my tooth was loose. As I read scripture that Sunday my tooth fell out right on the Bible. Instead of freezing up as I had done many times before, I stood tall and continued to read. this was a small but important moment in my life that I still proud of. Collage 3 is the examination of my relationship to Newark, NJ. Collages 4 and 5 are maps that I created a geographical and biological examination of my family, my grandparents specifically, origins in the south, Alabama and North Carolina, and later to migrate to New Jersey in the 1940's and to occupy the space as a northerner in a family of southerners. I used a series of area and zip codes along with the counties Marion and Greensboro where my grandparents are from in Alabama. I did the same for my New Jersey map. This is a part of my identity that I am still learning about. I don't know my family in the South but I hear stories about how something I did, said or had an interest in reminded someone of a relative I've never met. It makes me wonder "Was this inherited?", or "Does my family have a natural inclination towards these things?". These maps illustrate a longing to uncover this side of myself, this other part of my identity and finding another sense of home.

In Judith Howard’s, Social Psychology of Identities , she mentions, “Space, both geographic and virtual, is another recent basis of identities, a direction that attests to the interdisciplinary character of recent research on identities.” Some studies focus on literal space; consider “place identities,” that is, identities based on a sense of being at home. Key questions consider “place identities,” that is, identities based on a sense of being at home. Key questions concern the effects of mobility on place affiliation and intersections between place identities and transitions in the life course.” This quote supports what my series is about.

I was heavily influenced both formally and conceptually by a variety of artists and designers. Dennis Oppenheim’s Earthworks and Carrie Mae Weems’ work. Both of these prolific artists examine space and identity in the geographical and societal sense. In my work I sought to examine my place in these spaces. As a former architecture major I still implement what I learned, in my design and artwork today. The late Zaha Hadid and Frank Gehry are my favorite architects. They both have a legacy for daring designs, and unconventional design processes. I admire the aesthetics of their creations and who they are as visionaries, trailblazers and innovators in society. Shoshanna Weinberger and Wangechi Mutu are two Black women artists that create grotesque artwork of women’s bodies specifically Black women. Their work is an examination and critique of societal views on women’s bodies, race, regional connections and their place in society. Although I didn’t use figures in my collages, the idea of repetition, fragmentation and abstracted forms are what I implemented. Surrealist collage has influenced how I see composition and fanatical realizations. I used many of these elements in my designs. The dream-like and abstract qualities is what I was trying to convey.