Growing up can be a challenge, especially in the teenage years. Some people use writing or art as a creative outlet for all the emotions they keep inside. Sebastian Eriksson is an 18-year-old up-and-coming surrealist artist living in Sweden. Not only is his artwork amazing, it’s extremely thought-provoking as he adds descriptions of how his pieces relate to his life and how it has shaped his identity. I have found his work to be highly relatable to identity and culture due to how the individual chooses to conceal and reveal his identity in a captivating way.
For instance, in the piece above, he states: “This is another paradox that I’ve been working on for a couple of days. It describes a person with psychological problems such as schizophrenia, insanity, depression or other mental problems. His endless screaming makes his own mind eat him up. I have periods in my life where I feel like this. I wanted to make an illustration of my thoughts and my pain within.” The second image in particular has caught my attention because there are two sides which are revealed to the audience and that is the part of the face where the puzzle pieces are falling off and the skeleton of the boy id beginning to show and take over. The meaning behind the image tells us that the boy is reaching to an end and it takes puzzle pieces (thought) to know what is really happening to the person. The boy can no longer keep the mask on which is his real emotions and feeling. through the sharpness of the image, it represents the roughness and makes the image seem shattered and faces the reality. Time is also expressed within the image; it shows the past, present and future of the individual. The puzzle pieces falling down is shown through the blurred motion and that is represented as the current situation. Bright colours are not present in the image, only dull colours are used to be contrasted against the pale and skin tone. The overall tone of the image has a cool tone and this reniforces the harshness of the image.
I will try to incorporate the idea of hiding your identity but at the same time reveal to the audience how I'm hiding it, this could be achieved in many ways for example, through puzzle peices that expose the realness of a human or a person using another form such as a picture frame to cover who they really are in order to please the society around them.
I will try to incorporate the idea of hiding your identity but at the same time reveal to the audience how I'm hiding it, this could be achieved in many ways for example, through puzzle peices that expose the realness of a human or a person using another form such as a picture frame to cover who they really are in order to please the society around them.
My Response.
Through the inspiration of Sebastian Erikkson, I have created the following piece using Photoshop and artistic skills. I used a self-portrait that has a very strong facial expression and gives an insight of seriousness and creates weightiness upon the audience through the direct eye contact. I drew on puzzle pieces onto the image, focusing on the face in particular because that is where the most sensitive part of a human is and can tell us a lot about a person’s centre of emotion. Furthermore, I scanned the image and using the photoshop tolls to uncover the underlying image in black and white. You can still perceive time within the image however I tried to focus on how the girl felt very deeply by secretly trying to uncover the real side to her or how she felt. To achieve this, I used the idea of puzzle pieces and it takes a extensive thought process to understand someone sincerely, not through just a glance. By only revealing some parts of her face in colour and the other in a very dark and dim tone displays that there is more than one emotion happening within the person. Although the image has colour, the colours present are dusky which give off that even the happiness that is aimed to be radiant and glooming to be reflective of happiness has a sense of uncertainty and vagueness. Which means that the person is already on a very low of breaking down although they are trying incredibly hard to be strong, as the facial expression is evident to that.