Portfolio 3
In my work, Post-internet Olympia I seek to portray a young girl who is being forced to be someone who society says she should be. Adolescent girls of this generation are under a lot of pressure to follow certain beauty standards that are implemented on a day to day basis by the media. Young girls becoming women at thirteen just to feel like somebody, just to feel validated or a sense of belonging. “Olympia” was a name that was associated with prostitutes in 1860s Paris and it is also the name of one of Manet’s most controversial paintings. Manet’s Olympia was particularly controversial not because of the content of nudity but because of her confrontational gaze and the details that indicate she is a prostitute, including her black ribbon, her jewelry and her sensual pose.
I decided to take this 19th century Olympia and bring her to a Post-internet setting, where young girls are hyper-sexualized by popular culture all over the world and with this in mind making a reference to Anime in the way that she is portrayed. In this piece, she is facing the viewer while her body faces to the left, thus making the viewer enter the drawing through her breasts, creating an immediate connection to sexuality and promiscuity. I added the henna tattoo, something that my generation is very familiar with, as a symbol of the ephemerality of youth and the yearning to stay young. A Post-internet setting where there is a new kind of Olympia, an Olympia that grants you access into her virtual, make-believe world, and you can’t tell whether she’s thirteen or twenty one because they all look the same from the other side of that news feed.
Portfolio 2
In these three works I explore various aspects about my identity, from my nationality to my gender. The series speaks about what it means to be a Latina woman in the US as well as how the american culture has influenced me into having a bitter-sweet memory of home. The montage #1(Predominately Blue), shows with more clarity the flag of Puerto Rico coming out of the figure’s eyes yet differentiates from the other pieces in a particular way. The face is cut out from the Dry Point print and behind it is a face of a woman in pain looking away, suggesting that she’s looking away or rejecting the Puerto Rican flag. This work talks about the literal struggle and culture shock I endured when I first arrived in this city, from being sick constantly because of freezing temperatures to experiencing a misogynist and racist environment for the first time. The montage #2(Predominately Red), depicts a woman who is almost being consumed completely by “POP” colors, those colors representing mass media and popular culture. Suggesting that this “Popular culture” has taken over everything she sees, everything she says and everything she is. I decided to be very straight forward with this work because I believe this is a common crisis in the US, more and more we obverse “outside” cultures being swallowed by the American popular culture, with this work I want to bring to light the current problematic of culture ignorance in the US. Last but not least, montage #3(Red, White and Blue), Red, White and blue, the colors of the Puerto Rican flag and the color of the American flag create a woman who, in my point of view, is indecisive, confused and lost, a woman who has lost her identity. In this work I talk about the my feelings of wanting to go back to Puerto Rico yet accepting that this will never happen. New York has opened more doors for me in this year than Puerto Rico ever did, it has toughen me up and it has made me an independent woman but New York will never be home, I will always feel the wound of leaving my home and its memory will always live in my work.
Portfolio 1
Whenever I think about abstracting an idea, I think of Picasso. He says that it only took him five years to master a realistic technique but a lifetime to paint “like a child”. I was inspired by this city, as recent newcomer, I felt that this urge to run from it is what motivates me to make the best of this opportunity. For me, drawing what you hate is a lot more powerful than drawing what you love, and that is why I’m always drawn to speak about NYC and its energy in my work.
With the use of complementary colors on a grey and black pattern I intend to depict an abstracted scenery of multiple buildings that contain different kinds of people inside them thus creating a “balance” or an “unbalanced” environment; the balanced and unbalanced compositions and the mixture of the colors represent multiple ethnicities and/or social classes, the pink and green representing upper class and the blue and orange representing the lower class and second class citizens. I believe that these two prints in particular work perfectly with each other aesthetically and portray just the right amount of balance and imbalance that consumes my mind when I think about the way this city works.
JiyoungParkClassroom 