"We're creatures of the underworld, we can't afford to love"

"We're Creatures of the Underworld, we can't afford to love..."

Swan Song

For Jamie

Ugly Duckling

This drawing is the first in a series of three intense pencil studies that I will produce. The drawing is of The Ugly Duckling, a seemingly grotesque baby bird that is different from all the others, but who grows into a swan. The other drawings will also focus on swan imagery inspired by different traditional folklore, such as Leda and the Swan, and Swan Lake.

Self-Portrait

Afflicted

These paintings are the first two installments of a triptyque that I am creating for my portraiture class. I am interested in depicting the physical characteristics of mental illness and the emotional rollercoaster that the afflicted individual experiences. The subject or specimen of these paintings however, will go as far as to acquire animalistic or monster-like traits, depicting not what the outside world may percieve, but a self-projected image of the creature. These portraits portray the inner, psychotic, and abnormal condition of the mind via a physical and corporeal transformation. Through this series I wish to study the altering states that this human/monster hybrid experiences as her identity starts to bleed out.