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.

For Jamie

For Jamie

For Jamie

For Jamie

Why live life from dream to dream, and dread the day when dreaming ends?

My Lost Captive

These pieces are based on the exploration of drawing with light. I was working with the theme of confinement and imprisonment, but also safekeeping. I was interested in the idea that these creatures, or appendages of creatures, have been preserved and put on display, subject to scrutiny. The idea came from curiosity cabinets that were popular during the Renaissance, and also the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia, where freakish abnormalities of nature are preserved and housed in jars, put on display for their spectacular qualities.