Film Still Illustration -- Illustrator & Photoshop Versions

Concept for Self-Visualization

For this next project, I would like to do the three different settings that I am most used to being in: home (as in, my house), my college dorm room and surrounding environment, and the school environment. I feel like there are three different versions of myself when I am placed in each environment, and I would like to highlight that by showcasing both the surroundings and me in them. I think that this is how to truly define myself—I cannot say I act similarly in all three situations, so it would be difficult to characterize myself using only one.

My plan is to have my at-home self be more subdued and laidback, because that is what I am like when I am home. It is now the place for me to be able to relax and not have to think about work or any of the drama that goes on. My college self is a lot more outgoing and all-over-the-place, which I would like to show with a more vibrant and lively photograph(s). My classroom self is trickiest, because I feel like I can be a combination of both. I am certainly a lot quieter in class, but there is the whole art vibe that makes it unlike being the normal school environment.

Kahlo-Sherman-Xiuwen Comparison

Cui Xiuwen has a very ethereal, bright, and youthful vibe to her images; her Angel No. 1 image is the best example of this. She does like almost like an angel, with her bright white dress flowing in the wind and contrasted with the beautiful deep blues of the background. In Angel No. 3, there are many versions of her with her eyes closed, grasping forward and not knowing where she is going. In Angel No. 13, she again has her eyes closed, this time lying down with a pregnant stomach in front of a lush and beautiful sky. Through all of this, Xiuwen displays femininity in her work and there is almost a sense of repression. She is always either alone, or with other versions of herself, and always wearing white. There is a sense of purity and perhaps a sense of that being forced upon her. The message seems to be that she is forced to play the role of angel, with no sense of her own direction in her life.

Cindy Sherman mostly uses herself as the model, and creates pictures that inspire fear and anxiousness from the viewer. In her “Centerfolds” project, she looks afraid and vulnerable, curled up on the floor. “Fairy Tale Disasters” are also disturbing and not what you would expect out of a project with the words “fairy tale” in it. Sherman seems to take what is supposed to be considered beautiful, like centerfolds, and uplifting, like fairy tales, and showing the darker themes that one can find in them.

Frida Kahlo does mostly self-portraiture and always has the same very calm and stoic expression on her face, which implies perhaps indifference. She accentuates attributes of herself that are not necessarily considered beautiful, like her eyebrow. Las Dos Fridas shows the pain of her divorce from her husband, Diego Rivera, by showing the weaker and more vulnerable Frida dressed in white with her heart exposed and connected to her normal self. This allows her to really show off her vulnerability and pain, and again expose how there is a side to her that she makes visible through her artwork.

All three women seem to showcase vulnerability in their pieces in very different ways. Xiuwen does so by portraying herself as the angel who perhaps does not want to be, but is forced to by powers outside of her control as shown by her closed eyes in every shot. She is the unwilling angel. Sherman uses horror to show how the ideals of society, for women in particular, end up destroying the woman and leaving her in fear. Kahlo shows how vulnerability can be displayed the artwork, and how beauty is not always important. There seems to be a theme of femininity and exposing the negative forces in society that repress women.