For the prompt about pairs, I decided to respond from a personal point of view; when I heard of the prompt, I immediately thought about DID or MPD, something I deal with and decided to use as my theme in the art piece. Because DID/MPD is “a mental illness characterized by at least two distinct and relatively enduring personality states,” I felt it fit perfectly with the prompt.
As I began researching for artists, I came upon William Kentridge, who is known for his films, which are composed of a timelapse of a drawing being erased and reconstructed as a form of narration. His style is very loose, but very expressive, which is something that I wanted to convey in my piece as well. Kentridge also uses charcoal in his art pieces, and I figured I would get out of my comfort zone and try charcoal as well.
The piece is composed of two girls, one who is lying down and we can only see her legs and one that is sitting down on a couch as she looks at the lying down girl. Both subjects are located in a room, the blinds on the windows are composed of words that would be associated with the word “pairs,” as well as DID. Overall, the piece is successful when it comes to the idea, but it is not successful in execution.
The overall composition is supposed to be very expressive and loose, which I handled well in some parts such as in the girls and items around them, but when it came to making it a multimedia piece, I failed significantly; This is because I used organized, printed words as the blinds which clashed with the drawing and made it look awkward, like it shouldn’t be there. If I had handled the background differently, say using transferring paper or handwriting the words, it would’ve looked so much better. Overall, I don’t like this art piece due to the background, but it can be fixed and made more appealing.