Holes

The project title 'Holes' was a bit off-putting at first, as it is such a broad subject and I couldn't quite pinpoint what theme would suit me best. Through this slight block, I discovered that finding a theme that interested me without restricting myself to the stereotypical topic of Holes was a lot easier. The idea caught me by surprise, in fact, as I was looking out into the darkness from my bedroom window. There was a full moon so the sky and clouds were well-lit, seen gliding across the canvas of the night, whilst silhouettes of artery-like trees bled into the stars. This beautiful setting alone was remarkable, but then I began focusing on the window itself and what it was reflecting from inside my bedroom towards the outside world. To make things even more interesting the reflection of my own face had a slighter twin, created from the light reflecting on the double-glazed windows. This then reminded me of absence and presence; the presence of myself through the reflection of the glass but then the absence of the true self - the reflection being a distortion, a copy. It had a strange ghost of a ghost-like atmosphere being in the late, empty night. The layers of the outside world, the glass, the self and the interior is also an interesting aspect to visualise one on top of the other, causing a question as to what is really there, and what is only a distortion of the presence of something.

I decided to experiment with a few charcoal drawings to experiment with my idea. I decided to use my brother as a model which was good as he was very willing to pull strange faces and squish his face. I did like using charcoal however I think that painting worked better for what I was working towards.

I was inspired by Ines Longevial for this piece in the way that she abstracts the face using colour. I decided to combine fleshy colours with a natural earthy green. It was a really interesting experiment for my doubled reflection idea and I was quite pleased with the result. I painted this using oil paint on oil paper.