For my narrative piece I want to look into my family history, more specifically my mothers grandparents and how they as people reach me and inform who I am today. The research part of this project took the form of a family archive where I collected old photos and written memories of my great-grandparents from my mother and my grandmother. I have collected a good amount of information and have been able to construct a partial picture of them as people, sometimes recognizing pieces of myself and my mother. From here I wanted to spend more time looking at the faces of my great grandmother Anieta and my great grandfather Don so I decided to do a few portraits of each of them. The goal I have in doing this is to really look at their faces, something I have never been able to do, and maybe uncover some similarities making them more familiar/real people to me.
As far as materials, I want to paint with acrylic paint on different objects that remind me of my family, such as cigarette packets or cereal boxes. I’m not completely sure how to approach this yet, but I hope through trial and error I can come up with a few effective pieces. As far as method, I plan on painting in a folk-art style that ties me to my relationship with art and its connection to home. I want to play with the idea of sentimentality.
