For my third project, I decided to explore what it meant for me to be stuck in an emotional and psychological “downward spiral”. This interest came about because I was stuck in a “downward spiral” of upsetting thoughts and feelings, and it struck me to use this concept and progression of emotions as a basis for my third project.
I had spent a period of time before this course producing artworks that explore my most debilitating emotions. I initially thought of continuing on with those works, but up until that point, exploring my emotions through art was associated with making these figures, and I wanted to do something I hadn’t done before (challenge my preconceived notions about what expressive art meant to me). I also wasn’t sure whether these portraits showed enough evidence of the “spiralling down” process, or whether it was imperative for me to show that.
At first I thought that I could present these works alongside the tools I painted with (palette knives and colour palette), but it still seemed like an under-developed idea. From this, I started to think about the ways I deal with my emotions when I’m “spiralling down”, which included painting. I thought it would be interesting to collect remnants or objects that will paint a self-portrait of me caught in a “downward spiral”. I then wanted to present these objects as an exploration of my reactions and actions within this particular state. They are almost a form of a surplus, left over from my actions and behaviours during a state of “spiralling down”.
The list I made of objects to collect included:
- Palette knives, a pencil, and a palette of colours used in my figure paintings.
- Tea bags.
- Handwritten and typed up journal entries.
- Bookmark.
- Pillowcase.
- Image of my jaw.
- Meditation soundtrack.
- Panadol for headache pain.
- Etc.
So I started collecting some of the objects on the list.
I took several pictures of the left side of jaw, and cropped them and accentuated the contrast to make them a little more abstract. I often get jaw tension due to stress.
Jaw image 1.
Jaw image 2.
Jaw image 3.
I also started playing around with my typed up journals, blocking out sections and leaving those that were indicative of upsetting thoughts/emotions and hence portrayed the spiralling down process. I found when I did this and read the journal again, the truncated sections gave me a sense of urgency that I felt represented a state of emotional “spiralling down” better than the collection of objects together. I then began to see the whole collection of other objects as background noise, that on its own maybe wouldn’t effectively portray what I want it to.
I decided to follow through with the journals, and collected the three journal entries I’ve written since the start of this course. I blocked out the sections that I thought would distract from the raw emotions in the pieces, and the truncated words gave a sense of urgency as you jumped from one negative emotion to the next.
I experimented with different coloured text and blocks, but found that the black text and blocks worked the best and didn’t add any unnecessary distractions.
Here are the final journal entries:
Journal entry from the 23rd January.
Journal entry from the 26th January.
Journal entry from the 29th January.
I’ve decided to print them out on A3 paper and present next to one another in chronological order.
Presented in class.