Welcome to Element 2 of my Creative Foundations unit. Here I have created some new creative outcomes, centred around my passion for art.
- ‘Identity and Portraiture’ mood board
- ‘My Art is Me’ short story
- ‘Paint with Me Q&A’ audio piece
- ‘A Trip to Barcelona’ short film
Identity and Portraiture
My Art is Me
Stepping into an art classroom as someone who communicates in paint and colour is like coming home, its belonging. After an unconventional childhood, where people prefer screaming to talking, being able to express myself without words, without feeling like I’m over sharing, with beauty and vibrancy and feeling, is something so rare and special.
As I drag my damp brush across the grainy surface of the blank canvas, it is christened with the first strokes of paint as I begin to bring this piece to life. My brushes are switched and dipped, swiped, then cleaned, and this process is repeated more times than I can count as I swirl paint, layer upon layer. In some way, my art is an extension of me and therefore it’s a part of my identity, it’s my voice and my feelings visualised and put on display for anyone to see, for them to critique and pick apart. It’s like I’m stretched across that canvas, stripped back, bare and vulnerable. But in vulnerability there is also elegance, and behind the chaos of colour and brush strokes there is beauty. My focus is people; a couple sat in the window of a restaurant, a random man in a park in autumn, my neighbour, my best friend, my sister. People and portraiture have always been the focus of my art, they inspire curiosity in me and that inspires creation. My art is full of faces and bodies and hands, and to some it’s all just anatomy, but to me it tells a story. I want my work to carry emotion and portray the complexity of human beings. Unlike my canvas, people aren’t flat and 2D, they’re deep and layered, containing a plethora of conflicting thoughts and feelings which are often too confusing to explain in words. Yet, somehow paint and graphite have a way of expressing this. My music blares as I continue to paint, instead of a distraction, it acts as a catalyst to my creative process. I’m almost in a trance as I mix up shades of paint, blending and building colours, that I don’t even notice the sun going down and the time flying by. I could spend days or weeks on a painting, and it would only feel like an hour, because when you’re in that moment, so engrossed and mesmerised by your passion, you forget that anything else even exists. It not long now before I can say that my work is complete. I endlessly refer back to my references and continue to add little details, which will most likely go unnoticed by anyone but me, yet the perfectionist in me insists that they are very much necessary. The fresh, moist paint glistens under the light and contrasts with the dry paint from days ago, and my brushes clang against the side of my glass filled with an ambiguous brown, cloudy liquid. I finish stirring my paint smothered brushes in the glass, as they’re rinsed clean, and wipe them off on my worn and battered apron. I screw the caps onto my tubes of paint, add lids to boxes, zip my brushes into their case and wash my hands, leaving behind nothing but my once blank, now beautiful, canvas resting peacefully on its easel.
It’s not often that an artist’s work is ever complete but, at one point, you have to take a step back and admire your work. As I do so, I begin to take it all in as if it’s my very first time seeing it, from all the colours, down to the texture. Finally, I look upon my work with pride and I rest with a smile of contentment.
Paint with Me Q&A
E2 Audio Piece – https://artslondon-my.sharepoint.com/:v:/g/personal/e_goonesekera0220231_arts_ac_uk/EfW_Q-FY7eFGp1YSWQRrmJEBWwASAPtvFsYXyMQns8dfQg?e=o71Ll6
A Trip to Barcelona