I was deeply moved by the film Fight Club, which explores and discusses alter egos and multiple personalities. An alter ego is when a person has an alternate self, which is completely different from their normal or true original personality. It is like putting up a psychological mask to survive in an environment or to cope with its harsh reality. I wanted to explore this as I am someone who tends not to understand how I feel about myself. I wanted to categorise the emotions I feel and explore in detail how these personalities affect my thought process and complete me. The key artists where my inspirations are from are Cindy Sherman and Francis Bacon. Cindy Sherman explores different constructed identities through self-portraits using different costumes and props. Francis Bacon’s work focuses on capturing the essence of the subject, revealing something deeper, essential, rather than replicating reality. The portfolio consists of different mediums of different media such as photo collage, staged photography and portraits in different costumes. Cindy Sherman is a well-known artist who talks about the stereotypes that have arisen throughout both the history of art and the history of advertising, cinema, and media. All she needs is an outfit, makeup, a wig and a camera to construct an identity that can be memorable and can be believed that the personality could exist in real life. She leaves her work untitled, which relies on the audience’s ability to build a connection with the artwork. She steps out of her own personality and explores different identities, which have different meanings, traits and characteristics to it. I was able to resonate with her photographs, with an understanding of how to step out of my own comfort zone to show different identities. Francis Bacon is known for capturing a deep sense of anxiety and violence in humans. He was raised in an abusive household. His father expelled him from their house when he was a teenager after finding out Bacon was homosexual, which made him vulnerable. He was very much affected by the Second World War, which ended up reflecting in his artworks, rather than giving hope to the people. Bacon chose to confront the darker reality. His paintings often had faces twisted into expressions of terror and jeopardy. The different personalities of me do have a high range of anxiety, after a point, it turns into something more violent, the personality turns into a human with inhuman traits in it. Both Cindy Sherman’s and Francis Bacon’s artworks don't have a set meaning; the audience interprets and understands it. Francis Bacon’s paintings breaks the anatomy of human structure to emphasise on the emotion which i am inspired from and am doing it in my portoflio To investigate and recreate it I have used several different methods, different forms of media. I tried doing it both physically and digitally using printouts, paper collage and Photoshop. For the physical investigation I tried to mess with different materials as much as possible, I tore it, colored it and drew over it. For doing it digitally I tried distorting it, layering it and also tried experimenting with its colours. I wanted it to have the same effect as Sherman and Bacon’s artworks, to give it the raw essence and to express it the way I feel. These helped me to understand the intensity of the personalities, their boundaries And what they are capable of doing. I was able to understand why I would need my personality to shift and what the reaction to it would be. The final piece captures the mixing up of all my personalities that create me as a whole person. I learnt a few things in the process, such as how to get into the personality I structured using props, makeup and costumes and multiple perspectives of how the world really is.
