DRY POINT
AGONY
Size: 20.3cm x 25.4cm Medium: Dry Point Completion: November 2018 In Agony, the use of negative space expresses how alone and empty my life feels. Although, the black filled teardrop represents my subconscious thoughts of sadness, anger, and fear. Inspired by Salvador Dali's, The Burning Giraffe. Salvador Dali's, The Elephants, inspired the use of weight within the scars on my face left from my past teardrops. The scars express the feelings I hold in, making myself have pain so others don’t have to worry.
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PLANNING
This sketch is meant to represent Salvador Dali's, The Elephants, subject placement of the elephants carrying an obelisk on their backs. I used a backpack to represent the obelisk because, many people can relate to the feeling of carrying a full backpack. Everyone that as gone to school knows the strain a very heavy backpack carries and how tiring it can be, it can make a person feel weak. Another way I represent myself showing strain was through my tears. Most people might look at this sketch and think I am putting my head down in shame. Instead, it is the weight of my tears falling down my face, pulling my head towards the ground. I tried to represent this painful strain on my neck by making it parallel to the ground. My tears are also inspired by the use of surrealism. Since surrealism uses the unconscious mind, I decided to show that through the puddle of my tears. The puddle expresses my extreme mental suffering and how I am unaware of how much it truly affects me, even though it surrounds me as I walk through my day.
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Instead of having my face covered I decided to use a self portrait. As you can see the expressing on my face is very mute. I really liked the sense that I don't have an expression because it made my meaning stronger. I created only one tear falling down my face while I had scars in places were tears have fallen. I wanted to show that my mental struggles are so painful they hurt to cry and leave scars as they fall down my face. Although I am going through so much pain I made my face have no expressions because I have gone through so much pain I am now feeling nu,b to everything.
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I liked the idea of having a self portrait and I wanted to continue branching off that idea. I decided to put a mask over my mouth and nose while a teardrop flows into the mask. This is meant to represent that times throughout my life I feel as though it is so hard to breathe, because I feel trapped and I have to stay silent otherwise something bad is going to happen. The mask is just a distraction for people, so they cannot see what is really hiding behind it. Since my mouth is being covered up by the mask, it represents that sometimes my mental pain is so strong that I physically cannot talk. The mask also is a place for my tears to be caught so nobody else can see the pain I go through, unless they look in my eyes. My eyes are dark filled because, unlike everything else in the image, my eyes are the only thing that can produce emotion.
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INSPIRATION
According to http://salvadordaliprints.org/the-burning-giraffe/ , The Burning Giraffe was inspired by Sigmund Freud (the founder of psychoanalysis). In this painting there are several drawers that are open on these these two ladies. Freud believes that the only way to open the drawers of the mind is through psychoanalysis. The giraffe, in the background, was a symbol of premonition of war. In Agony, I am trying to show that I have a lot of premonition of my life which is caused by many subconscious thoughts including fear, anger, and sadness. In the article it says, "The skin appears to be peeling, exposing what lies beneath, hidden, one of the main ideas conveyed in this work [The Burning Giraffe]." I also wanted this as a main idea in my piece because I wanted to show that I hide a lot of things that go on in my mind, but only when I am suffering great pain will my true emotions show. I would be able to demonstrate this by using burns or cuts on the face, to mirror the peeling of the skin on the arm in The Burning Giraffe.
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In Salvador Dali's, The Elephants, the elephants are carrying obelisk on their backs. Obelisks are heavy objects because they are towers. When I see this piece I look at how long and skinny the elephants legs are and imagine the strain on the joints to carry the towers. I wanted to be able to portray the feeling of strain or weight on my shoulders in Agony. I would be ale to do this by instead of having normal tears fall down the face, have a heavier object represent tears. You can also see how tall these elephants truly are when you compare them to the small people figures at the bottom of the painting. This made me think that the elephants are so separated from reality making it hard to find the truth in life. According to http://salvadordaliprints.org/elephants/ , Dali "used [elephants] to contrast the difference between weight and structure,".
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PROCESS
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EXPERIMENTATION
After inking the plexiglass and whipping off the excess ink I kept ink in the tear drop. I wanted to test how well the ink would show up on the paper if it was just placed on the plexiglass. After I pulled the image I really liked how dark the teardrop was. Having the ink place on the the plexiglass, without scratching in for the ink to lay, made the contrast more vibrant.
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For my first print I did not scratch my plexiglass hard enough. I figured if I did not scratch that hard, the ink would show up faintly. I wanted that look because it would make the contrast of the teardrop more noticeable. After pulling the image, I did not like it at all because the ink was way too faint, you could not even figure out what was printed. This is when I noticed I needed to go back over to and re-scratch make my lines to make them deeper.
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REFLECTION
SIMILARITIES
DIFFERENCES
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ACT RESPONSES
Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your artwork?
The way I first interpenetrated my inspirations is the way I used to give me an idea of my meaning. After more research it helped come up with a stronger meaning and create an image.
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
In Salvador Dali's was inspired by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture,etc. while you researched your inspiration?
That many people can have many different thoughts and not know what they mean or where they come from. Our dreams are out of control sometimes but can help us connect to our subconscious.
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
Subconsciousness was the overall theme of my dry point, inspired by surrealism paintings that were inspired by psychoanalysis.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
Our brain is a very complex thing and we are only aware of a little percentage of how it works. Although the brain is apart of us, it seems as though it is working against us. Our brain and our thoughts are two separate things and we can control neither fully.
The way I first interpenetrated my inspirations is the way I used to give me an idea of my meaning. After more research it helped come up with a stronger meaning and create an image.
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
In Salvador Dali's was inspired by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture,etc. while you researched your inspiration?
That many people can have many different thoughts and not know what they mean or where they come from. Our dreams are out of control sometimes but can help us connect to our subconscious.
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
Subconsciousness was the overall theme of my dry point, inspired by surrealism paintings that were inspired by psychoanalysis.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
Our brain is a very complex thing and we are only aware of a little percentage of how it works. Although the brain is apart of us, it seems as though it is working against us. Our brain and our thoughts are two separate things and we can control neither fully.
BIBLIOGRAPHY (MLA)
The Burning Giraffe, 1937 by Salvador Dali, www.dalipaintings.com/the-burning-giraffe.jsp#prettyPhoto.
“The Elephants.” The Temptation of St Anthony by Salvador Dali, salvadordaliprints.org/elephants/.
“The Burning Giraffe.” The Temptation of St Anthony by Salvador Dali, salvadordaliprints.org/the-burning-giraffe/.
“The Elephants.” The Temptation of St Anthony by Salvador Dali, salvadordaliprints.org/elephants/.
“The Burning Giraffe.” The Temptation of St Anthony by Salvador Dali, salvadordaliprints.org/the-burning-giraffe/.