Notes and Mirrors
Thi N.
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The theme of this work is chasing a perfect self, the one we humans hide behind on social media. However, the perfect, Instagram self is merely smoke and mirrors. I held a photoshoot with my friend Angelina Pham who I had dress up really nicely and do full makeup. In this photoshoot, we took what we considered to be “Instagram worthy” photos. I reflected one of the photos onto the mirror. After that, I cracked a mirror using hammers and hot glued the pieces onto a canvas, to represent that this perfect self was truly unreachable. To further portray that we are trying to reach this unreachable self I had a hand trying to grab the ideal self, even going through the canvas. For that part, I drilled holes into the canvas and fed the wire parts of the arm through. Lastly, I used paper mache and wrapped it around the arm wire structure to give it more shape but also used it to portray the loss of the true self because they reached for their ideal self. The text on the paper notes or scraps closer to the bottom are less raggedly, more secure, and say words such as “undervalued” or “impulsive,” which are generally a person’s insecurities. The parts of the arm closer to the ideal self are more torn up; there are more holes in the hand, or the persons’ fake self. There are surface level personality words, like what you would say you are on a dating profile, such as coffeeholic, bibliophile, and scientist. The name of this work plays on the phrase “smokes and mirrors” but replaces smokes with notes as there are notes about the person throughout the arm.
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Creativity is everywhere in my life, especially beyond the canvas. It helps me run the biology club and come up with activities for the children I volunteer with. It helps me make birthday gifts, customize my jeans, and come up with ideas for my essay hooks in English class.
