Silhouette Portrait

At the beginning of this project, I wasn't sure what colors I wanted to do or how I wanted to be portrayed. As I looked for blocks of colors in magazines, I found that I was skipping over a lot of blue (this is odd because my favorite color is blue). I started forming the idea for my portrait but still was unsure about my background. I know that I am disorganized and unclear in many aspects of my life and thoughts. However, I put on a calm facade to fool even myself sometimes. In tennis, I am constantly concerned every point and scared that I made the right shot selection. A player doesn't want her opponent to know that she is nervous so I must control my bodily gestures and face. This has carried over into my everyday life. As portrayed in the picture, the blue is very thin; this depicts that the nervous and disorganization can escape at any time. I guess I didn't realize how nervous and disorderly my thoughts and life were until I had to depict it. The shapes are amorphous in the portrait, though they look geometric at first (part of the facade). The background is black and white stripes that are geometric made of smaller geometric shapes.

I used reds and oranges for the center of my portrait to show bright distracting colors. This symbolizes disorder and confusion going on in my life. I used amorphous shapes to add more confusion in the mix. The blue border is thin representing the barrier that I use to hide what I really am dealing with. The blue color is the calm façade that I display when I am stressed and don’t want to let anyone know. However the barrier is thin showing that it can be disrupted at any minute, symbolizing my explosions of stress and disorder. The border is amorphous showing its fluidity depending on my mood at the day. The portrait appears geometric at first glance which is part of my disguise. The background is made of black and white stripes that are geometric and made of smaller geometric shapes. Of course black and white combination is intimidating and the stripes are similar to prison bars. I believe the society today has certain expectations that are hard to meet or are just silly to try to be. It is hard to break free from this societal prison that has pressure on me to act, be, and look a certain way. The smaller parts that make up the bars are symbolic of the smaller aspects and people that form and modify these societal rules. For example, actresses are (generally) all skinny, tanned, and wear a lot of eye make-up. Society expects us to be that way when we “dress up” to prom or formal occasions. However shows like Jersey Shore depict the casual views of society: too tight short shorts, tan, the “bump” hairstyle and muscular guys with gelled hair and who go through girls like alcohol. What happened to being yourself? Society has transformed all of us into something we may have never been. We are all imprisoned to some degree by society.