Lost

Daydreaming

"Apparitions No. 4 (Daydreaming)" - mixed media, photo transfer, acrylic on canvas/cardboard

This piece actually started as a simple experiment in photo transfer and other techniques I learned in a "Built Surface" continuing studies art class. It has been tucked away in my portfolio for three or four years, untouched until a friend complimented me on it and asked me to finish it for her. It may have started as a humble, technical exercise, but I think that the final product may actually be my favorite piece to date.

"Apparitions No.2" - mixed media, acrylic on wood

...the depths of the unknown and the infinity of space were both vying for the chance to consume me.

Childhood is grim and desolate and terrifying, and I remember being a miserable, serious child. I lived in constant fear of the universe and its endlessness. Darkness seeped into my orifices and filled me up with dread.

From "A Series of Self-Portraits"
"Apparitions No.1" - photo transfer and acrylic on wood

I have always had a fascination with the supernatural. This is a painting that I did probably well over a year ago, inspired by a vintage photograph from the twenties and reinterpreted as a sort of otherworldly self-portrait. I suppose that the effect that I have utilized is the kind usually achieved with a long-exposure photograph: a sort of still image of the process in which the head detaches itself from the body. However, the effect is also that the woman's head is a sort of tumor, obscenely regenerating itself again and again but oddly defying gravity.
Detachment is a familiar feeling for me. As a child and adolescent it paralyzed me with fear. I desperately wanted to ground myself, to feel solid, to connect back to "reality". The irony was in how much time I spent inhabiting my mind - so much so that I remember wishing that I could escape my constant stream of thought on many occasions. More recently I have fantasized of being able to hold my head at a distance, like a balloon on the end of a string tied tenuously around my wrist. So much farther from my the physical constraints of the body I loathe. So much lighter than the burden of flesh. Now detachment is my default. It is the coping mechanism I employ every day, although I dare say that I may not even inhabit my own head anymore. More likely I float just above it, ghost-like.