Concentration 2013- 2014

 

My concentration is based around the idea of the societal corruption of youth.  I started with simple, smooth forms to represent the innocence of youth and then progressed to more organic and spiked forms which represent the corruption forced upon us by society.  I also included mirrors with each of my pieces to represent the way we view ourselves after society has influenced us.

 

 

Image 1 represents an individual before society taints their innocence. The emphasis is on the smooth, perfect, round sphere. There is an intact mirror to show how our reflections of ourselves are pure and not yet deformed by societies expectations. As the pieces in my concentration progress, the original sphere begins to transform. This is sustained throughout my thesis. As shown in images 5 and 6, the sphere is being impaled and changed by sharp coils which represent societal influence. In each piece I shattered the mirrors in different ways to portray how our reflection of ourselves changes and becomes more distorted as we get older. In the end, my pieces become darker, sharper, and more rigid.  Image 12 has morphed into the complete opposite of what the sphere started as in image 1. Image 12 was a piece where I took a lot of risk. Making a piece that large out of clay and having it balance on three points while having multiple spikes protruding all over the sphere was difficult. There was additional risk while working with so many shards of broken  mirror. Throughout this process I developed an understanding of how to develop a thematic body of work and I am proud of the outcome.