AP Studio Art Concentration

As I prepare to leave for college, I have begun to genuinely appreciate the places and people I interact with. I created this body of work to explore feelings of belonging and isolation within the different facets of my life. Always fascinated by spatial perspective, I began my concentration by painting three scenes as if I were 10 feet below. The settings I chose (the studio, the pool, and my grandfather’s grave) are all places I have come to know well over the course of my life. The viewer sees the scene happening above them, but the composition intentionally doesn’t invite the viewer to join. Despite spending a great deal of time in these three places, I deliberately didn’t include a self-portrait in these three because I never felt a true sense of belonging within these settings. Transitioning into the next phase of my concentration, I used the eye-level perspective as a tool to depict scenes where I could find sanctuary over the course of my life. I tend to take on too many responsibilities and the subjects featured in this phase provided comfort when I was drowning under commitment. I painted them from this perspective to seem accessible to the viewer just as the subjects were to me. The last piece in my concentration is a self-portrait from bird’s eye perspective. As the only self-portrait I my concentration, intentionally painted to portray the byproduct of high standards, self-criticism, and ambition.