For the series project, I decided to make mental illness the theme in which my pieces revolved in. In the four pieces, the main subject remains the same, though that is not really the case; though it is part of the same person, it is a different personality in each art piece. This is hard to see, but it was done purposely so one could not tell which one is the ‘fake’, the ‘main’ or the ‘real’ one since there is no such thing, they are all one in the end.
To create this series, I used watercolor, watercolor pencils, pen, color pencils, pencil, chiyogami paper and printouts. The colors and patterns chosen were picked to create a certain harmony and beauty, not to romanticize mental illness but to show that though it is chaotic and all over the place, it can at times create something beautiful. Subtly I placed a religious reference as well; behind each girl is a halo, like those that angels and saints have. I chose to do this, though I am not religious, because saints are known to suffer from wrongful thoughts and events (like the cause and symptoms of the ill) but are later rewarded for all the pain they went through. It is not to say that all of the people with mental illness are rewarded, but to say they are strong human beings.
The two outer pieces that are done in black and white, contain negative thoughts in the background, thoughts that might run in their head or that they hear in their daily life; they both react differently, one seems immune to it while the other seems stressed as she holds her hand to her head and looks with one eye. Those two are supposed to show how impossible it is to see the beauty that one’s flaws can create, while the two in the middle seem to collide all the chaos into something beautiful though they might not be absolutely happy.
Though I somewhat like these pieces, I do believe I could improve. An area I could improve on is in picking a better background to create a way of cohesively done piece of art. I also need to stop trying to apply printed text on my drawing because it does not go with my style.