Headspace
Amelia C.
Acrylic paint, watercolor pencil, canvas, posterboard, string, cotton, tissue paper, metal chain
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This piece recreates the disorienting feeling of being in a dream. It includes whimsical elements—clouds, floating buildings—as well as ominous symbols—a dying bird, spreading vines and brambles—each of which captures the arbitrary yet impressionable imagery that we see in our dreams. In dreams, there is always a deeply buried sense of self-awareness: while we can feel faint traces of our physical presence, we have little control over ourselves. I chose to represent this by depicting a girl sleeping behind the canvas, only visible through a tear in the dreamscape. Further, hands reach for her from all directions, capturing the suffocating feeling of being trapped in a lucid dream. Dreaming is a unique experience to each of us, and very difficult to describe accurately in words—the various artistic elements of this piece attempt to capture the impressions that usually only exist within our heads.
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For me, artistic creativity is a way to put onto paper the fleeting images I see in my imagination that cannot be captured by words.