Silhouette Portrait- William Lamar

After reading the prompt for this assignment, I was immediately reminded of the "Great Man Theory", popularized by Thomas Carlyle, and its counter-argument by Herbert Spencer. Spencer wrote, "Before he can remake his society, his society must make him".

I thought about two opposing schools of thought: that individuals are products of the world around them; or who they are individually comes from within, regardless of environment. I feel that I am a mixture of both, being influenced greatly by the world around me, while also being an individual.

My self portrait says that while I am greatly influenced by my surroundings, I am also an individual. I tend to generally think of everything in a very linear fashion, so I chose shapes with well defined, sharp edges that were more cubic in shape. I like things to be orderly with everything having a well defined place. Upon extensive self-evaluation, I do not associate with any specific color any more than any other color. Emotionally, I think I am right in the middle, I don't really experience high or low emotional feelings. My color interaction is dynamic, so I included many colors in the shape of my portrait. My environment is very dynamic, I do not feel it could easily be given any specific shape, so all shapes in the background are organic. My outside environment has many aspects, everyone and anything can easily change it. Nature is rarely cubic and rarely has well defined lines. The colors in the background reflect how dynamic the world is, it is always changing and there are many colors. I reflected my personal interaction in the world around me by defining a line between myself and the environment, but not making that line well defined. The figure and ground can not be quickly distinguished from one another, they seem to blend together at first glance.

The most surprising thing I learned from this project is how much the outside world influences who I am currently, and who I will become in the future. I tried to think of how the outside world does not affect me, but in some way or another, I am greatly affected by it. If I was living in Alaska, I would be a much different person. If I was living in Africa during the 1600's, who I am as a person would change. I thought hard about who I am as a person and if my personality would change if my current surroundings were different.