Process
Reflection
At the beginning of this project I knew a portrait could be a representation of a persons appearance or a representation of their personality. I had a very pigeon holed view of it, even in considering all the abstract options I had. I knew I didn’t have the skill or quite frankly the desire to represent anyone’s appearance (I’m not good at realistic drawings and they stress me out because I’m a perfectionist), and so I took the only other route I saw. However, I thought that portraying someone’s personality required some sort of deep and spiritual connection with and knowledge of the subject. I realized quickly that I would achieve so such connection nor would I gain any such knowledge in the span of two weeks, so I let that dream go. I then saw that if I had tried to go deep and make my portrait into some profound piece, it wouldn’t be authentic. It would be empty of Chabely and full of assumptions and ideas that I imposed on to her. That would be gross. I don’t want my art to be gross. I appreciated the way she went about making my found poem and portrait. She didn’t make it about my personality at all. She didn’t make it all encompassing. I don’t think she even tried to. She took one thing that she had noticed in the information I had given her about myself and focused on that and that alone. Instead of trying to do a ‘big picture’ portrait and attempting to put the entirety of me on a canvas, she focused on a detail, one fact. I like the idea of doing one thing really well as opposed to many mediocre things, and so I appreciated her method.
Now when I think about portraiture, I definitely see a broader range of possibilities. I think incorporating into a piece the recognition that perception will taint the absolute truth of any portrait could be interesting to play around with. To openly and blatantly admit that and not try to side step or work in spite of that reality. Hm…
