(click to see larger size!)
done with permaopaque markers on acetate. the assignment was an artist book, aka free reign to make anything i wanted in book form.
i had many ideas revolving around the idea of communication. since communication was a central theme in my personal exploration at risd (ie: the relevance of art and how much insight an artist is able to impart to modern society when art is undervalued), i felt like it would be fitting as a final project. a few of the other ideas i was thinking dealt directly with the perceptions of a viewer at a gallery versus the artist's intent while they were making the work, and it would involve a lot of cut outs and pull outs and it was complicated and i didn't like the idea of making my own "masterpieces" to fill the walls of my fictional gallery ...
so this is instead what i chose to do. it comments on the superficiality of communication: when we speak to people, we don't truly know who is the person we are talking to. we fill conversations with small talk, but we don't get at the essence of another's character. moreover, a lot of what people say intends to hide their imperfections, and we as people end up conforming to our fears of vulnerability.
the first sheet of acetate (after the cover) is just a line drawing of my entire face, flipping it begins the "revealing" (both physically and symbolically) of myself. each subsequent sheet of transparent acetate is a different part of my face, except instead of drawing it out, i write a sentence about that feature. the statements are things i don't really tell people about myself but is nonetheless revealing of who i am/was as a person. the final sheet is just the pupil of my eyes with "you see", which can be construed as "you finally see who i am" and as the end to the question (connecting with the title of the book) to read as "is this all you see"?
while presenting to this to my design class i felt my voice quivering a bit. it's funny, it turned out a lot more personal than i thought it would be. i haven't really shown this to people back home either. so i guess that means no matter how open and ready i feel myself to being vulnerable, part of me is still holding back...
when viewing in person, each page takes a while to flip since the book is a bit shaky, being sheets of acetate bound by too-big rings and all ... I actually enjoy that it is shaky. I don't see it as a flaw of the book. It takes longer to flip each page. It makes you pause, and think after each slide.
i owe a lot of the successful results to my friend Gavin, whose discussion throughout the process really helped me come to fleshing out each slide. :)
COVER: is this all
1. full face line drawing
2. hair: My entire family gets their hair cut by my mom. I was fourteen the first time someone other than my mom cut my hair. The hairdresser speaks only chinese so he ruined my bangs; they were too short.
3. face shape: I used to tease my older brother about his acne, forgetting that we share similar genes.
4. ears: My mom refuses to let me pierce my ears.
5. nose: I have always hated my nose.
6. eyebrows: When I was little I plucked with scissors.
7. eye shape: At age eight, my aunt offered me double eyelid surgery.
8. lips: One tooth grew behind the other. I still don't smile much.
9. pupils: you see
