Saturday, December 10, 2011

Lookin' back at how I saw myself... By Angélique



I took part in an arts project in June 2010 on self-portraits called "Are you lookin' at me?!/ Tu veux ma photo?!"

A self portrait is narcissistic, but it also reveals how an artist wants to be considered by others.

At first I was perplexed about this theme, because I didn’t have any ideas of what to create, it didn’t really inspire me… However, after much thought, I decided to write something about myself.

But, what should I say about myself ? My life is not that amazing... In the end, as I was feeling a little low at the time, I decided to write about self-loathing, but in the third person.

Writing this text was very difficult for me, because I had to question myself. Being fifteen I did not really know how to ask the right questions, to understand how to solve my problems. Everything seemed too difficult to handle. When I finished writing my text, I wasn’t satisfied (I’m never very satisfied about anything I do).

People who then read my self-pitying text were really surprised. They said : “You’re such a happy girl, you're always smiling and laughing !” But I smile so as not to show my feelings of sadness. This gave me the idea of placing a photo of me smiling with the sad text. The person who then reads the text and sees my picture might then think about the fact that we often use our faces as masks ; we show the world an image of happiness, but in fact we are unhappy inside...

A friend took photos of me in different attitudes : with a smile, with a childish grin, with a look of hope. In the end I used the photo of myself looking up to the heavens... I was quite pleased with the result. Many visitors to the exhibition said they liked it.

Today, I look back at my artistic effort, and think about all those tears and insurmountable problems, and chuckle... My self-image has improved, and I care less perhaps about how others consider me.


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