How can the Self have an image? Being so diverse, ambiguous, controversial and omitted? Therefore It is necessary to abandon the search for a graphic representation of this mystified hidden entity and, this way, portray the very definition of Ambiguity. Building this image, I intented to materialize the Other's gaze: the viewer/author in contrast to the full immaterial and anamorphic existence of being, hidden and limited by worldly accessories.
In order to represent the submissive “I” from the author's gaze and, at the same time, draw attention to the condition of women in Art History, I came up with an adaptation of Johanes Vermeer's work “Girl with a Pearl Earring” to my taste for illustrations contrasting colors by giving Mariah a colorful face painting. This seventeenth century work exemplifies the traditional representation of women in which their subjective selves are pruned and molded to the notion of passivity, obedience and availability according to the authoritarian, and in this case, patriarchal, notion of the artist.
However, in the pearl earring, which in Vermeer's painting, shares the protagonist role with the girl who wears it, we see the other face of the Self. The subjective Self reflected in the sparkling jewel, the infinite and illegible by the artist Self, set to observe the image of his condition as “the other of the other”. The reflection here emerges as a representative of the Self's reciprocal condition of seeing and being seen. As Sabine Melchior-Bonnet quotes in her book “The Mirror: a History”: This is the ambiguity and fruitfulness of the reflection: both identical and different from the model. The two faces of the mirror, which the needs of the analysis oppose are based, in fact, on a complex mixture: the individual is always, simultaneously, the same and the other, similar and different - a being with countless faces. ”
This cartoon styled illustration presents Luiza's fun personality. Her brightening presence and easy smile are her most remarkable features, not to mention her insaciable disposal for hard work without ever giving up style.
Gouache paint and ballpoint pen on tracing paper
This Wolf Erlbruch inspired illustration intends to expose Luiza's soft and sensitive side as it reveals her strong love and admiration for Penelope, with whom she maintains a two year long distance romantic relantionship.
Gouache paint, coloured pencil, graphitte pencil and collage on pink paper
