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About
"I have a wide variety of things I've been keeping solely
in my mind. A lot of the time, I find it tricky to organize those fragments of thought
into something I can truly share with others to let them experience the same emotions I
did. I've imagined so much I wanted to share but the limitations of reality always seem
to make it fall short–
for now."
Above is the statement I wrote that goes with this visual piece.
This self portrait collage was done during my first quarter in college, Autumn 2020. At that time, finally having to write papers again after a gap year, on top of being quarantined from social interactions for the longest time, I was reminded of my discreet struggle and then-current career goal of trying to merge thought with reality — by that I specifically refer to the creative process. Our world just does not allow thoughts to escape the realm of the mind without some sort of adaptation to reality at this point. Though it would be nice if thoughts could turn into reality, how it is now is the beauty of creativity, and it is unintendedly demonstrated through my trusting the process in turning this self-portrait-collage itself from thought to reality.
Components
Though it is my passion and tendency to often "leave it to the viewer," I would love to explain my intentions with what's on this collage.
Background. The monochromatic base layer of the background represents how I see the world around me through the eyes of my thoughts. And though Indonesian newspaper is the only newspaper I was able to get, I think it also ended up being given an important meaning — to the general English speaking viewer, it looks foreign; just like how my thoughts see the outside world. You can also see it as being part of my Indonesian identity, though, with this being a self portrait; but I'll leave that up to you. The main thing intended here is color being the first distinction the eyes will make bewteen the static environment and dynamic core of the portrait.
Me. There, I am composed of a lot of different fragments grouped into different colors. This might be hard to believe, but what amazes me when I was doing this is that I wasn't actively thinking to group those fragments into colors like that; I can recall simply going for shadows and overall brightness, and magically most of what goes onto my face is blue. I'm not saying it's by chance, I just think I did it subconsciously. I swear I'm not trying to brag, but on the topic of shadows, I also completely blew my own mind when I magically managed to find and place the many images into darker areas and outlines that make sense in a 3D representation (except of course, all the green for the hair) — I'm talking about the guitar on my neck making a diagonal shadow with its surroundings, just like the shadow my neck would make in that lighting, the pictures on my hoodie that clearly forms the fold lines of my clothes, though I wasn't intending to do that either. The portait being a mirror image was also a happy accident from trusting the process. I completely wasn't aware that I was doing a mirror image of mysef, but I think that fact proves that I was so focused on worrying about how others will perceive my ideas that I completely ignored how others will perceive me. The things I decided to include as being part of my composition on the portrait: my family, musical instruments, cars, planes, and trains, languages, different foods, sports, something to represent gaming, and also of course, the Indonesian flag. My hair needs its own section.
My hair. I thought this needed some explanation because a lot of people had comments about it. At the time, I just learned the fun science fact that trees communicate with each other in their community, I think with scents. I just thought it would be a good representation of a network, one that has literal branches as well, that represents the mind as a complex junction of internal intercommunication. The green also just contrasts well with the rest of me.
Glitchy fragments behind me. These are the abstract, jumbled, natural form of what I think my thoughts or anyone's thoughts are. They build the mind. They're hard to be directly understood, and they stay behind a person's interface most of the time. The pictures are a combination of ideas (architecture, music), memories (photos with friends), things I am learning (piano, sheet music, programming), and things I am seeking to understand (aeronautics, music theory). You might also notice the single misaligned thing on it, the MPERFECTION. It's just a fun reminder of the overused and obvious concept that no one is perfect, though we could go down another rabbit hole to figure out what is meant by "perfect."
My vision. The blue funnel of future I emit from my eyes, though using typical "technology" pictures, are the only thing I could think of using to represent the path I see for the future: the advancement of technology to help people bring thoughts to reality more accurately. It literally tears through the background as an indication of how powerful it will be.
The Process
Planning and Sketching
I had a picture in my mind of what it would look like, but I'm never the best with realism in art. I needed some tools to translate this idea onto paper. So I started by having my mom take a picture of me in the lighting I imagined. Then, I slapped a polygon of a face oriented the same way as mine over the reference to further help emphasize the shapes. I simply searched for a head object online, imported it into Blender, oriented it, and rendered.
// picture reference
// polygon
// combined
Next it was time to transfer this image onto paper with the right scale. I couldn't think of an easier way than to just sketch it by hand and hope I get the proportions right.
// whole head sketch
// facial shadows sketch
Starting with Me
I thought the easiest and quickest one to do was the hair, so I started with it. The neck was also a fairly simple shape to do, and I've found the best images to build it with, with dark areas that align to form a shadow. At this point I've also collected and printed all the pictures I'll need to compose this collage.
// hair and neck done
// progress
Next I decided to work on the face, the most intricate section of the portrait itself. I used the sketch from earlier to form the shadows using darker pictures, then filled in the rest of the shape with lighter images. I used some reflective origami paper for my eyes so it stands out under great lighting. I of course had to use the saxophone bell for my ear, it just fits really well.
// face, shadows
// face, highlights
And with the face completed, I cut its outline and placed it with the hair and neck. The head is now done. I forgot about my glasses too; I just drew them by hand using another picture of myself for reference for the sake of time.
// the finished pieces so far
// the head put together
// head with glasses
The last piece of myself is the hoodie I decided to include. This is where I astonished myself. The pictures I half-inadvertently chose somehow lined up so well with and around each other.
// hoodie, in progress
// hoodie done
With the hoodie done, I put all the finished pieces together and completed the "self" part of the portrait.
// self, done
// self, back side
Finishing Everything Else
Now it's time for the background and the rest of the portrait. I first started by cutting up a bunch of related technology pictures, all mostly blue. I pasted the strips onto the final board horizontally.
// blue strips
// pasted horizontally
At this point I was also preparing pieces of newspaper to use for the background. They're all local Indonesian newspaper.
// the rest of the workspace
// the rest of the workspace
Similar strips of newspaper are pasted vertically, opposing everything else having color. I was told that verticality represents stiffness, stubbornness, even upsetness, and horizontality meant being settled, tolerant, dynamic. After the newspaper pieces were on, I began pasting the abstract fragments of thought behind my head.
// pasting thought fragments, also horizontally
// almost finished!
It's midnight, and the entire piece is almost finished! I decided to take a picture of the self alone one last time before permanently incarnating him into the environment I have simulated for him; it's going to be his reality and he needs to get ready.
// last moment before pasting (shiny eyes!)
// finished product
// it got displayed on its own stand at a fair at the ARC!
The Reflection
What I Learned
Trusting the process really took the spotlight in this project for me. It was almost magical to follow my own intuition and then be rewarded by the reassurance that it couldn't have turned out any better. I want to say it was my effort because I did it, but I still don't feel right about that because I was more "letting" myself do it, not judging myself in the process. Side note, even writing this is another attempt of mine in translating thought into reality; it's still a struggle.
My Next Steps
This is my one and only meaningful major collage project. Though I'm discouraged from doing more collages by the thought that I was merely lucky to be able to come up with this by trusting myself, I would want to make more collages once I muster up enough courage. This counted as a big project for me, and I'm still in the process of cooling down from it. Something innovative I would want to give a try is an interactive collage. There are lots of ways to implement that, maybe viewers can click on a piece and see where it came from, or maybe they can rearrange pieces to see how they fit together differently. A digital collage is my next step then.