Artist Statement

For the spectacle I wanted to make an image that represents self-discovery in a unique and shocking way. The idea of learning new things about yourself fascinates me, because in theory, no one knows you better than yourself, so when you do discover something about yourself it is a genuine, brand new discovery. I started out by thinking about what self-discovery means to me. I thought about how a person is completely controlled by their brain. The brain is where every bit of information on that person is stored. I thought I could represent self-discovery by showing someone literally dissecting his or her own brain and exploring it. I chose to use pictures of myself. The first one is of me sitting down, and then I photoshopped my head to make it look as if the top part of my head was cut off and my brain was opening up. The second picture is of me again using a flashlight and a knife to explore my own brain. I put myself in a dark, smoky setting to make it seem like an amateur experimental place, such as in a basement, similar to where Frankenstein was created. In my sketches I have some drawings of contortionists because I researched the term “spectacle” and read an article on how the term used to be associated with “freaks,”  so another idea I had was to create an image of people who would be considered freaks.