#s0phksd

This piece another work in my thesis project. It consists of three ceramic and mosaic tiles. They are meant to represent the connection between the generations of Greek women.

There are three hands holding on to a blue thread, which is a symbol of Greek heritage. The level of connection to cultural identity, while different for each woman, is still present whether it's realized or not. At the end of the day, we are all Greek by blood. It is part of us in one way or another.

hi! as i'm writing this, i have already had my first critique on friday the 15th. this one was meant to be more casual. we showed some of our past works as well as examples and influences of contemporary and historical artists we have been researching. we presented our themes and overall concepts for our projects, and talked about the mediums and number of works we are completing.

i talked about the theme of my project and i explained how the subjects of my project would be my family, as a lot of my immediate family were born and immigrated from greece.

i talked about my plan for my project in terms of medium, number of works, and presentation. i plan on doing a collection of charcoal drawings, collage-work, painting, and 3D sculptures. this collection will be set up in a sequential format.

i showed some of my plans regarding some of the pieces i've start working on, as well as sets of photo references that i have set in my studio space, as there are quite a few that are very important to the narrative i am trying to convey. for example, there is a family portrait that i received which happens to be the last photo before they came to the united states.

(while i have gotten permission to use them in my collection, i won't share the full photos on this site yet until i receive full permission!)

i'm planning to share more progress on some of my pieces, so stay tuned for more updates!

--✯

Artist Statement

Oftentimes, people feel the need to hide their struggles, thoughts, feelings, and true selves from others around them. The suppression of how we really feel on the inside can only go on for so long. Eventually, we crack and our true feelings come pouring out. I felt that a mannequin would be a great example of showing the presentation of the person shown to the world. A mannequin is meant to display something to those who pass by, with little to no emotion. Our brain is what creates and operates our existence as a person, which is why I chose to focus on a mannequin head rather than an entire body. The fragility of a person is emphasized by the styrofoam material of the head.

The head is cracked open, displaying yarn that is pouring out of the head. While it also connects to both parts of the head, its distance from each other shows how it failed to keep the head completely together. The yarn is different shades of the color blue, which symbolizes complex emotions of sadness. Additionally, however, blue can symbolize freedom. Together, the blue that comes from this opened head shows how these emotions are finally freed.

This piece is a mixed media portrait. It's a collage work consisting of colored pencil drawings, acrylic paint, and printed maps.

The subject of the portrait is my great grandmother. She is older, and so having her be the subject of this kind of piece is meant to symbolize the long-lived prevail of Greek women despite their hardships.

She wears a head scarf, so this is made with printed maps of Greece. The headscarf is made of these maps to show that she is proudly embraces her cultural identity. The maps are positioned in a way to mimic the folds and the specific way she wraps her head scarf.

The gold paint is the background of the portrait, which is a historical reference to Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine artwork. Religion is a big part of Greek culture, which is the Eastern Orthodox faith.

This is the latest version of the portrait. Obviously, it's not finished yet, but it's very close to being done. I'm planning to incorporate another map in order to define the specific shapes of the head scarf.

I was stuck on what to do for the bottom of the portrait for a while now. During our last critique, it was suggested that I could imitate the texture of the material of the headscarf with either fabric or charcoal. I'll most likely be doing a combination of both, so we'll see how that goes!