In the third creation of my final exhibition, I illustrated nine pieces. These illustrations depicted nine characters, defining people I have met in my life. They represent my thoughts of strangers, my hiding fears and the mysterious places these strangers would take me to. Opportunity, hope and darkness in everything were presented to me in various forms. It was a process of searching along with the aftermath. Although they appeared to be characters of different genres, each character represented an identity we serve in life. The costumes we wear to play our roles in this society, the masks we are required to wear, the fights we need to put up in order to save ourselves, and the searching of dreams in this big sea: these are the responsibilities of our inhabitance here.
The figures in the illustrations were separated into two groups: the viewers and the performers. The performers were depicted with a mask or a costume. When we put on a mask or a costume, we are automatically diving into the role we play. We recognize one another not by what a person is like deep inside, but by capturing the outlook of the person. We see no expressions because the masks cover all of our facial features, as if we could see through them once the face is revealed. It can be a way of protecting ourselves; when we hide, we just do things better, and we find more assuring security being hidden. Once we were dress up and our faces are covered, we tend to play our roles extremely well, stripping everything off, each revealing the same deep skin.
These illustrations depict how we see strangers and what role they play in our hearts.
We give identities to these people, judging them by what they are like on the outside.
However, we are the ones who decide what costume we can wear today in order to belong to the crowd of our choice. In a way, we are organizing ourselves to be divided and defined by our actions. It seems like a necessary act for everyone nowadays.
With such roles of as a doctor, a dancer, a circus performer or a policemen, we are to service this society. We meet different strangers each day while performing our tasks.
We embrace a common ground in our daily affairs. We are bound to do a duty that is quite similar to a product displayed in a storefront window. We are dressed to sell. Most times, these are just the ways to prep for reality, as a human.
My illustrations are the reality of the admixture of everyday emotions. In fact, a mask lets us pretend and lets us hide, but in the most obvious way we are nevertheless depicting how much we need to hide, to keep us sane from this realm. In a calm method and with vivid illustrations, I just wanted to show a reality that comes with the common;
a reality that is not entirely different from any of us around.
Then we come to a set of characters holding binoculars. They stand on higher ground and look far ahead. These characters are again showing no facial expressions because they are busying looking through their binoculars. They represent the other part of you and me, the part that is always standing apart from us, observing what is going on. On one hand, we are the performers who play our roles with costumes and uniforms. On the other hand, we are the viewer, the peeping tom. We stare at this world as it stares back at us. It’s a mirrored situation no matter what we do; we stand, looking from two directions, and we isolate ourselves in many ways. In my sayings and thoughts, I do not intend to point out the rights and the wrongs of how I view this society. I perhaps present it in a more melancholic manner, not necessarily with a negative outlook.
As I am typing this thesis, the choice of words, the structure of putting meanings together and how I seem to be spontaneously inaccurate, there is always a mirrored sight to this.
Perhaps if you do not think too deep about this and ask why, you can glimpse a certain memory that exists within your mind, a memory in which we were once standing above the ground peeping down on the rest of the world, and the world was looking back at us directly implicating all possible disguisers. The characters here are less realistic com-pared to others. They were meant to be sitting on the imaginary side of us, yet doing the things we all do.
Pop Culture in the sixties brought me a great deal of influences. In a way, the pop art-ists drew from the commercial world and celebrated the beauty of ordinary things. These ideas provided the knowledge that we ourselves are the product (in between producing and consuming goods we are producing our own complete self-image). It embraces so many of the things that are familiar to us that we use or see every day without thinking twice. However, with the presence of art, they give whole new perspectives and spaces for the mind to appreciate even more. In a similar method, I am illustrating these charac-ters as if they were the products in the windows, well packaged and ready to go. These characters seem like the strangers that we meet everywhere, and they reflect the many sides of us surviving in this world.
Techniques of Storytelling
These artworks are illustrated in similar ways, as each canvas has a single figure. There are two canvas sizes, however the characters are of similar size, no matter which canvas they are on. There are all painted in acrylic, rich in colors and decorated with objects. They are painted in such a way as to let me express them the way they are. The performer and the audience are found in a single illustration. Each character’s face is hiding behind either a pair of binoculars or a mask. Personal expressions are not reflected in these paintings. I did this so that viewers can look at my illustrations and fit in the emotions they have in mind. The strokes are rough in order to find a balance in my technique, so that all the illustrated pieces, including the storybooks, share a resemblance.
Artist Cover Story
Paul Smiths, a fashion designer from the UK, revolutionized men’s suit design because he strived for individualism. He never intended to become a fashion designer, in fact, he had always dreamt of being a cyclist. He trained every day, cycling at least four miles to work, until one day he had an accident. From that day onwards, he realized there should be another world besides his bicycle. His dream was shattered and was disposed of in a bin.
However, life began for Paul after the accident occurred. While working in London, soon after he gave up his dream, he met his true love, Pauline. She was a fashion designer; she taught him how to design, and Paul Smith Clothing was then created.
The Paul Smith Clothing line was different from any other retail shop back in the 70s. Paul would make the shop into something more personal. He brought individuality to his cloth-ing and created a store environment with a balance of commerce and art. Every time Paul traveled, he would bring back objects that were irrelevant to fashion. He would buy knives, funny old pens and silly notebooks, and put them in the shop. He would put a bright red toothbrush next to a cashmere shirt. Customers would eventually buy the toothbrush for three pounds and the shirt for a thousand. The opposites, the irrelevancies and the acci-dents: if we use our hearts and put them together, they will work in miraculous ways.
When I look at Paul Smith’s experiences, I find that the inspirations are coming from a sincere heart. We can be driven to sincerely express our inner feelings, and at the very same moment, find appropriate expressions for the feelings we wish to transmit. True and sincere work touches the audience, not limiting the source and outcome where it is from or perhaps true love wins it all.
(Referring to Paul and Pauline)
Accidents themselves can bring amazing dreams. The accidents that change our direc-tions, the strangers that turn out to be the love of our lives, the meaning expressed in the process of our journey, every route takes such braveness to pursue. Among so many things, dreams are not for experts or geniuses, but for man. We relive a freedom by mak-ing our dreams come true.
Paul and Pauline Smith in Italy, in the early 70s
One last story ? my dear friend.
Once upon a time, there was a peacock.
Only a peacock.
He liked to walk.
He never stopped walking.
He will kept on walking, with no direction.
He walked.
He walked.
He walked.
He stopped for a while,
as if he was waiting for someone.
He spread his great fan.
With his fan spread, he stood still,
as if he was waiting for someone.
The peacock started to walk again,
as if he was looking for someone.
He walked , he walked, he walked.
You can say the world is a cruel place, you will never know who you will meet
one day.
End of Chapter Three.
8 months, 271 days, 6504 hours later,
we arrived alone on a strange land filled with strangers.
These strangers walk with us through unknown paths of our lives, they don’t seem so strange to us anymore.
How many more 8 months, 271 days, 6504 hours more between you and me ?
Epilogue
Concluded.
References
1. Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting Cooperation, Peguin Books, 1972.
2. Oeri, Georgine. Man and His Images, A way of Seeing. London : Studio Vista, 1968.
3. Lenain, Thierry. Monkey Painting. London: Reaktion Books, 1997.
4. Sturken, Marita, Cartwright, Lisa. Practices of Looking. New York : Oxfor University Press Inc.
5. Kimmelman, Micheal. The Accidental Masterpiece, On The Art of Life and Vice Versa. New York: The Peguin, 2005.
6. Meilach, Dona, Hoor, Elvie T. Collage and Found Art. London : Studio Vista, 1969.
7. Denner, Micheal A. “Accidental Art : Tolstoy’s Poectic of Unintentionality”. Philosophy And Literature ( Vol.27, 2003).