As my parents’ careers as classical musicians led to frequent long-distance uprooting to follow necessary employment opportunities, my childhood became defined by a looming, uncertain question: where will I end up next? The chaotic instability of sustained transience has irreversibly shaped my personal and artistic identity, leaving me with a feeling of fragmentation that bleeds persistently into my artwork as I cherish the rare consistency within my creativity and further synthesize the cultural mosaic that is my individuality.
This coming summer, I will work with Professor Kevin Curry to undertake a multimedia creative project that explores how interpersonal bonds and the artistic process have provided reinvented stability within my sense of home. Using myself as a canvas, I will explore unconventional self-portraiture through face painting and costume design in a series of three works. Each piece will represent an emotional stage of regaining consistency after continual relocation. Similarly to how I myself have been one of the only presences that has remained constant in every place I have lived, the most consistent material within these works is myself.
The first work in this series will depict full emotional dissociation through the use of greyscale and fragmented shapes, emphasizing the disconcerting nature of aging by focusing on formal, notably adult clothing. Conversely, the second piece will introduce recovery from these feelings through application of scar wax, which will imitate healing wounds. These illusive lesions will reveal swirling patterns beneath my skin as a representation of creativity and my childhood artistic dreams. The third and final piece in this series will be an expression of pure creative joy and personal style, represented by bright colors and more extensive formations of swirls both on my face and clothing. All elements of costuming involved in these artworks will be constructed from secondhand materials, facilitating connection between the unknown and fragmented history of pre-owned items and my own feelings of disconnection from my identity. I will also integrate reflective materials into the costumes and face paint designs, emphasizing both literal and psychological reflection on my chaotically transitory – yet creative – childhood.
This summer, I will travel to Hopewell, New Jersey – where I lived the longest as a child – and enlist the help of my childhood friends to photographically document these pieces in the locations most essential to my formative years. While wearing each piece, I will also create video recordings of conversations between myself and these friends – who have been fundamentally important to my creative journey – about the personal experiences that inspired this project. This June marks exactly six years since I began living in Tallahassee, the same amount of time I spent in Hopewell. As a result, this summer has become a time-specific period for self-reflection as my feelings of childhood nostalgia come into conflict with the traditional ideal of establishing roots in a specific place. Returning to my roots – both geographically and creatively – will give me the reflective space I need to mend the patchwork of my experiences into a more cohesive artistic identity and pursue art for the rest of my life.
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