Overgrown
BA Thomas
In this series of portraits, I choose blooms that relate to my subject’s story, the positive & the negative, to surround their figure. This newfound placement of blooms among portraits is the most blatant use of their symbolism I’ve used in my work, which intends to reveal characteristics you may or may not know about the subject. And while each flower is purposeful, so are the frantic lines that build up the figure’s features. This is a raw view, and very-obviously-not-a-photo, or a painting for that matter. Digital drawing is a medium of this current time, and I want it to be seen as what it is. The flowers used reveal only parts of the subject’s character, and the medium, stringy and twisting like a vine, builds only enough layers to convey their figure. Like the gaps in the marks that reveal their shape, there are gaps in reduced symbolism and representation.
I cannot capture someone exactly as they are experienced as a whole human. And during this pandemic, many of us can’t experience each other’s presence fully either. Yet I’ve chosen to wind this current medium into recognizable forms, conveying characteristics through a veil of hidden meanings, embellishing the figure with their own symbolic overgrowth. This cultivation of suggestions comes together to build a portrait that not only portrays the person behind it, but also recognizes the cracks of humanity where the vines of personhood take root.
These portraits are all of womxn. Womxn who challenge how I think about other womxn and how I think about myself. Womxn who teach me about art, who teach me through their art, who champion each other, and who engage with difficult things in honesty and bravery. Womxn who have been hurt. Womxn who have shared stories of enduring sexual harassment, assault, and gendered violence, and womxn who have witnessed similar stories. Womxn who have encouraged themselves and their peers to bloom brightly. These portraits are of womxn who have made mistakes, who aren’t perfect; who have cracks and chips that can be seen straight through, who tended their gardens and who let the madness of their overgrowth bear fruit. These portraits, while full of beautiful elements, aren’t about idealizing or idolizing. They’re about acknowledging womxn’s pain, looking for their stories, and recognizing that the representations we see from a distance are not the whole picture. What does it mean to see how their cracks mirror our own? To see how their mistakes mirror our own? To see the pain and the pleasure and to let it intertwine with our own? Is it such a bad thing to be a little wild, a little leafy, a little overgrown?
I cannot capture someone exactly as they are experienced as a whole human. And during this pandemic, many of us can’t experience each other’s presence fully either. Yet I’ve chosen to wind this current medium into recognizable forms, conveying characteristics through a veil of hidden meanings, embellishing the figure with their own symbolic overgrowth. This cultivation of suggestions comes together to build a portrait that not only portrays the person behind it, but also recognizes the cracks of humanity where the vines of personhood take root.
These portraits are all of womxn. Womxn who challenge how I think about other womxn and how I think about myself. Womxn who teach me about art, who teach me through their art, who champion each other, and who engage with difficult things in honesty and bravery. Womxn who have been hurt. Womxn who have shared stories of enduring sexual harassment, assault, and gendered violence, and womxn who have witnessed similar stories. Womxn who have encouraged themselves and their peers to bloom brightly. These portraits are of womxn who have made mistakes, who aren’t perfect; who have cracks and chips that can be seen straight through, who tended their gardens and who let the madness of their overgrowth bear fruit. These portraits, while full of beautiful elements, aren’t about idealizing or idolizing. They’re about acknowledging womxn’s pain, looking for their stories, and recognizing that the representations we see from a distance are not the whole picture. What does it mean to see how their cracks mirror our own? To see how their mistakes mirror our own? To see the pain and the pleasure and to let it intertwine with our own? Is it such a bad thing to be a little wild, a little leafy, a little overgrown?
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