Below is a very rough, rough draft of my thesis for my senior year at DAAP. I am struggling with how to successfully write about my art but I have faith that I will be able to pull through in the next month.
Suspend Your Disbelief
My art is about illusions. My work is about visually lying to my audience and confusing them. I
work with a goal of trickery and deceit to convince everyone that what I bring
before them actually exists. Over the past year, I have merged my love and passion for theatre
and fine art on the canvas that is the human face. With layers of makeup, I enhance and add lines, angles,
shapes, and color to altar the human face to achieve my desired goal. I transform the individual that plays
the vital role of my canvas and transform them into another being entirely,
sometimes making them unrecognizable to their friends and loved ones. The illusion is a physical
metamorphosis of the face for others to suspend their disbelief and perceive
that what is false is actually true.
My artwork focuses on the face because
this is the most prominent part of the human body that humans use for
identification. Thomas Morawetz
examines the significance of faces in his work, “Making Faces, Playing God,”
“Faces
matter insofar as they are natural, not artificial. Identifying persons and holding them responsible for what
they do depends on the face that they have one and only one unique and natural
face for life.” (Morawetz, 4)
People
rely on faces for recognition. One
does not look to someone’s hand to figure out who they are; it is the face that
is supposed to assure who a person is.
It is natural for the human race to accept identification through visual
information. However, small
changes to the face or personal interaction with someone can still identify who
they are without much illusion.
“And
our powers of recognition go beyond our powers of imaginative recall. We know that we can recognize Jones
even if we not sure he still has his mustache and still wears glasses.” (Morawetz,
4)
By
documenting my art in photographs, I create a barrier, making it more difficult
for my canvas to be identified by limiting my audience’s interactions. When people realize how easily their
identity can be morphed or compromised, it becomes unsettling.
The art world likes to draw neat little
boxes and keep all of the creative individuals in their own little sections
with very little blending. My art
is a combination of the performing arts and fine art. Makeup artists present their skill for television and the
stage but rarely ever the galleries. Through fine arts I have taken courses that studied the human
face. Both areas require a deep
comprehension of the human face, each just requires different techniques to
render the correct depiction. A large number of the artists use Photoshop to
altar the face and create an illusion.
I stand apart from these artists and bring something different to the
table by using strictly real world materials such as makeup and props in my
artwork. The human face is a very
popular subject for artists and has been for centuries, but it is rare that the
face itself is used as the canvas.
My
art is a composition that heavily transforms an individual’s face. The process to reach the final result
includes inspiration, research, and trial and error. Makeup makes sense to me. I understand how the human face is built. I appreciate every individual persons
flaws and features because that is what makes them uniquely identifiable. When I begin a project, I choose a
model based on the needs of the end result. For example, I will not choose someone who is overweight or
has a round face if my end goal is a dying cancer patient. However, I have presented myself with the
challenge of transforming only one individual’s face in a variety of results
and forcing my audience to accept that same individual as different people more
than once. This will require the
ultimate illusion with no room for error.
When
I began my illusion-based art, I started out with characters from the stage
that required drastic transformations.
My first experience of character transformation was the Pirate King from
the operetta The Pirates of Penzance. I gave the character a Jonny Depp
quality due to the recent pirate character he played in Disney’s The Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger
Tides. The transformation for
the Pirate King required a wig, a change of skin tone using bronzer and lots of
mascara and eyeliner to achieve the full illusion (see Before and After Pirate King, figure 1).
The experience of my art can happen
multiple ways. The audience can
view my work in the process, forcing it to be performance art, or it can be
documented in photographs or video.
This altars the way my audience perceives my work as the experience will
define their understanding. I am
more interested in my audience seeing the end result of my art, the ultimate
illusion. Otherwise, my whole
purpose is lost; a person is less likely to believe the person/piece of art I
put before them actually exists. By placing a photograph of my art in the
gallery, people would take their time before the work and have the comfort of
allowing themselves to get up close to examine it further whereas a live model
in full makeup is likely to make audience members uncomfortable and they would
not take in the full illusion. My
intention is give my audience a moment of wonderment, as they can comprehend
the illusions I place before them, not to feel intimidated.
Through
using herself as the vessel for her art, contemporary artist, Cindy Sherman
creates work that is a reflection of her audience. Using her face and body as her canvas, Sherman creates the
illusion that she is someone else entirely to the point that her audience at a
gallery cannot recognize her. To
build upon the visual illusion, Sherman chooses the backdrop, articles of
clothing and accessories to support the makeup and transformation she goes
through. Sherman proves that a
narrative is necessary to create a successful illusion.
To
further my research and in order to produce a higher quality of makeup-enhanced
illusions, I have been enrolled in a makeup class at the College Conservatory
of Music. In this I have learned
makeup for basic bone structure as well as male and female corrective
makeup. In the future I will learn
age makeup, gender swap makeup and fat makeup.
Throughout
this process I have discovered how much every single detail matters when
composing a piece of art, especially one that is to be preserved in photography. Not only am I responsible for the
makeup transformation but the quality and composition of the photograph that
captures and documents the illusion.
I
have concluded, based upon this experience, that I am no where near finished and
I still have much to learn/do.
