Marissa Kampe- Silhouette Portrait

My art work has two figures facing each other. The first, on the left, starts dark blue at the tip and becomes lighter throughout, the other is purple that starts dark towards the center of the piece and becomes lighter as it move towards the edges. I tried to contrast the dark blue and purple with the ground. It starts out as light nude colors and towards the edges becomes darker pinks. The reason I did dark and lights against each is that I wanted them to stand out. I wanted the darkest darks contrasting with the lightest lights. I tried to make the area on my figure that is the eye area to have the most contrast between dark and light. I made the nude, more organic colors, very geometric by cutting them all into rigid squares and piecing them on the page as such, with very few significantly overlapping. With the purple and blue, I tried to make the pieces I cut out more organic and less structured, overlapping significantly and not paying attention to structure.

I chose the nude/pink colors for the background because I knew it would create the most contrast between my profile and the background, or rest of the world, I did this because I, just like everyone else, am different. My personality, the way I look and dress, isn’t the exact same as anyone else. I also was trying to do something ironic with the colors in that the ground is skin colored where as the figures are not; they are colorful with multiple shades of the same color. I chose purple and blue because both can be very sorrowful, deep, and sincere colors, but also can be very joyous and rich colors. I chose these because of the depth of both color, and then I made each figure fade into a lighter version of that color because I believe that for me, and a lot of other people, that there is always more than just face value, that there are different layers of color and personality for each person.

I chose two different colors for the figures, not because I have dual personalities, but it is natural for me to feel different emotions or be in different moods periodically. Another reason for the color gradient is because I am not stoic, and I feel that even if the figures were the same shade of blue or purple but with different patterns of the color, from far away it would still blend together into the same color. I was originally going to chose pink and orange or orange and red as the colors for the figures because they are my favorite colors and they are bright and happy, and usually associated with warmth, but thinking about the project and knowing it was to be a self portrait, I know that I am not bubbly and happy all the time and that I feel, as I said above, a wide range of emotions daily. Color and shape influence my life daily by what I chose to wear, the world around me, and how I perceive people and how they perceive me.