Exhibition text
"Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, 1940." Frida Kahlo. 2011. Web. 30 Sept. 2015. <http://www.fridakahlo.org/self-portrait-with-thorn-necklace-and-hummingbird.jsp>.
Process1. I did some planning sketches
2. I took photos that I needed in order to do the photoshop
3. This was the process on photoshop.
Overall there weren't many difficulties with this project, just computer issue but luckily I figured most of it out myself and my brother having photoshop on his laptop helped me a lot.
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Title: Wishful Dreaming
Medium: Digital Collage Size:61X91cm September 25, 2015 This is a piece I created using Photoshop, so it's done with digital manipulation. I was inspired by Frida Kahlo, particularly her "Self-portrait with thorn necklace and Hummingbird". After that I started brainstorming about how I can create a piece that takes inspiration from her piece. I decided to make my piece about an important time in my life and then my "wishful Dreaming" came to be. My intention for this piece was to give hope to people and to send the message that dreams do come true.
Artist InspirationWhen I started to brainstorm about what I wanted to include in my Photoshop, I started by making a list of things I wanted my photo to symbolize/represent. After doing so, I noticed that I wanted a self-portrait, I wanted to include my culture and tell a story. I automatically thought of Frida Kahlo when I put these things together, she did all of these things in her painting and so I decided that she would be my inspiration for this piece. Shortly afterwards I began doing my research and I remembered a painting I did last year of her. I thought it would fit my piece the best and that I could do something similar to that with my own spin. The painting that I decided to take inspiration from was her "Self portrait with thorn necklace and Hummingbird" .
Meaning of PieceI don't have a deep and complicated meaning behind my piece, its rather a story no one knows about me. So I decided to tell my unknown story through this project, I thought it was an opportunity to do so. With such opportunity I thought I should not only tell a story but to also send a message to people who might be feeling what I felt at the time. The time I'm talking about is the time I spent in the Kenyan refugee camps from when I was born to when I was ten. Due to the civil war that started in Somalia in 1991, My parents had to flee the country for their safety. Where they ended up in a Refugee camp with many other refugees. I was born in Kakuma refugee camp but my parents moved to another refugee camp in which I spent my childhood in.
In the refugee camps, there were barbed wire fence surrounding the area, to keep refugees from escaping to the country. That's where the big black lines come from in my piece, they symbolize being trapped inside the camps. Even though I felt trapped, the camps had very beautiful trees and breathtaking red sand so the environment was very beautiful and that's what the green leaves represent. Notice their the only things that are colored in my piece because they were the only things that were positive about living in the camps. When I saw other families that shared the camps with my family were all slowly getting transferred to America or other western countries, I was very envious of their departure from the camps. My envy and sadness is shown through my face, At the time I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life in there. With each year that passed I felt like my desire to leave the camps became a wishful dream, that would never happen. Those are the reasons why I chose the title to be "Wishful Dreaming" and the black tear represent my lost hope to leave the place. My message with this piece is to never lose hope, even though you feel like the situation he won't get better. Despite the fact that I felt that I would never leave that place, I still did. That shows that almost every difficult situation, eventually comes to an end.
ReflectionOverall this project was fun and exciting to do, but of course there were some ups and downs. At first I had a hard time because I wasn't familiar with photoshop. However, as time went on, my photoshop skills got better and I used those skill to make my piece. When I first started though, I was stuck because I didn't know what I wanted to do. I wasn't comfortable with sharing somethings thats affected me or was important to me, so I pondered for a long time before I finally decided to tell a story. After I decided what I wanted to do, I had a hard time with photoshop. I had done some pieces of my art work, and while I was on the process, my laptop died and I ended up losing a lot of my work. So I had to start all over and at that point I wanted to do something simple, so that I could finish the project on time. But thankfully my brother got photoshop on his laptop and he let me use it to finish my project at home, so I ended up going with my original plan. Fortunately I finished on time and I was satisfied with my results.
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