Discomfort

The inquiry that sustained my investigation was is it possible to turn art, something we consider beautiful, be manipulated into appearing ugly and unsettling to the viewer. I began to take concepts and settings the average person would be familiar with upon seeing my pieces, such as a bedroom, a bathtub–and I eventually progressed to more abstract versions of items we see everyday, such as a deconstructed garden or mannequins outside of a store. I experimented with large splotches of black ink mixed with the white background, because from far away such a stark contrast draws the attention of the viewer. Some of my earlier pieces such as the stars or the baby became too grueling and uncomfortable to look at, and I began to realize that the craftsmanship behind my pieces wouldn’t be appreciated if whoever saw them was too scared to contemplate them for more than a few seconds. I still wanted to include little easter eggs of recognizable objects within my work, but in order to captivate the viewer, I had to become looser with my subjects and really refine my linework.  In my piece with the claw machine, I experimented with watercolor laid over intricate linework, and it smeared everywhere. Instead of taking the time with micron pens, which I had been using thus far to complete my pieces, I rushed through my normal process and drew with a cheap ballpoint pen. I tried revising the piece and covering the smeared ink with white paint to start over, and when that didn’t work, I covered the mess with scraps of paper. While I originally hated the piece because of the weird texture it created, it taught me to pay close attention when I was working and practice my technique in pencil before solidifying everything with ink. A big choice I made was to avoid color throughout my investigation, because while beautiful, I didn’t want anything to distract or take away from the images I spent so much time formulating and executing.What I uncovered from my sustained investigation was no matter how disgusting or horrifying the physical images are on your paper, the final artwork will always hold its own type of beauty through the sheer work and technique that went into its creation.