This was the First project in my Foundation year; the Alter Ego. This project forced me to explore the repressed and subconscious side to myself. Some people attempted to do the opposite of what their alter ego was but I decided to exaggerate my alter ego. My alter ego is someone who cannot move on from the past - this alter ego uses aggression to push the past away but it always lingers no matter how hard they try to push it away. I’m choosing to exaggerate my neglected persona. This alter ego is stuck in the past and isolates itself from everything and everyone, hoping that a change will come if they wait. This character does not travel and stays within their home environment. I like Francis Bacon’s work as he uses an artificial and indoor environment to enhance this surreal and unnatural environment. I wanted to create an environment for this alter ego that seems familiar yet completed alienated from society. This character only feels comfortable when alone and doesn’t like change at all. I usually enjoy change and I like to feel as though I am constantly progressing in life, however, I know that another part of myself wants to give up and stay home and be alone for a long time. I want to acknowledge this part of myself which I see as a flaw and i am going to acknowledge this by exaggerating this side to me. When I create this character, I want to provoke feelings of anger, security, melancholy and loneliness. This character tries to find security and that’s where her innocence lies. I used red, yellow and green as my main colours.

Unfortunately, I don’t have all the photos to show you my experiments of using cardboard and crackle paste, as they are in my sketchbook in Epsom. However, I have tried to included as many photos that I could. I loved the result of the explosion of colours and the reflective tape on either sides of the cardboard. I think the tap added to this idea of confinement.The tape also showed how my alter ego was attempted to make this confinement more secure and solid, as tape is usually used to hold materials and objects together. I like how the reflective tape showed reflections and shadows, as it creates even more of a barrier between the viewer and the art.

I also included a lot of vine leaves hanging down in front of the sketch and back of the box. This was a last minute decision which I actually found to be very effect as it created even more of a barrier whilst intertwining nature. I think the element of nature to this piece lifts the mood and creates less of a melancholy environment. Even though, the vine leaves are covering part of the alter ego, it symbolises renewal and growth to me because I am very fond of nature and if nature is growing and transforming that shows positivity. I also think that the vine leaves represents how old this environment is, so it also adds towards the history of this environment. The vine leaves can also represented how this environment has been neglected by the owner - the leaves are almost taken over the environment and consumed my alter ego, this represents a sense of loss and shows how this alter ego has become lost throughout the years due to contrast confinement and the manifesting sadness and loneliness.

I was very pleased with my end result because i incorporated crackle paste which portrayed a sense of ageing and history. I also used a cardboard box because I wanted to use something that was unstable yet familiar - cardboard boxes are usually seen everyday and are used constantly but discarded so quickly once they have been worn out an used already. I was truly inspired by the artist Ibrahim Mahama who uses discarded Jute Sacks which were originally used for importing coffee beans. The sacks were old and falling apart, but Mahama stitched them together and made huge installations that covered buildings both on the exterior and interior. This large scale installation really inspired me because of the context behind it; I thought it was so clever to use old and discarded materials to represent globalisation and the after effects of colonialism. I know that I will be constantly referring back to his work. I thinks it’s ironic how cardboard boxes are usually used for transporting and traveling, yet I subverted this and used the box for an isolated and stationary environment.

Here are some close up photos of the end result of the crackle paste and colours:

I am very pleased with the outcome. I think it incorporated all the ideas I wanted to through the use of materials. I would have liked to experiment more with space and scale, as i think I could have either made a larger scale environment or a tiny, little environment that you have to poke your head through. I also think that I could have experimented more with performance art and movement within this piece. I could have possible experimented with interfering with this space as an outsider; for example I could have see what would have if this place was disrupted with the rain or the wind. I would have also liked the destroy this environment in order to show how I am trying to confront my subconscious and the past - I could have destroying this naturally, again, like leaving out in the rain. Or I could have slowly broken it down; slowly lift the crackle paste off of the cardboard and present a pile of coloured rubble. This would have been good to enhance the idea of fragility and how easily our subconscious can be broken down if we didn’t leave it alone for so long. I like the idea of invading this environment that I have created in order to destroy it’s privacy. One of my peers mentioned that the box almost looks like a homeless person’s safety ‘blanket’ which I thought was a very insightful interpretation that links nicely to my idea of false sense of security.

This Monoprinting was initial experiments we done. I was explore different environments that were confusing. I like how all the lines overlap as it creates this lack of clarity and ambiguity about where the path starts and ends. I feel like it did reflect my current state of mind, as I know my alter ego is probably trapped between the past and present and is lost. I also think that we all have multiple alter egos, so the various lines and tones could represent the diversity within one person and how complicated we are as humanity. In the future I would like to experiment more with using just one tone of colour and using the monoprinting technique. I think I will definitely be exploring monoprinting more in the future.