Map Relief

ASSIGNMENT || "Adhering to the concept of relief sculpture, create a topographical map that reflects a personal idea"

Artist Statement: Perspective enables meaning. 

The start of this process was research. I read a work entitled, "Cellar", in which I picked several lines and depicted their meaning. Next, I worked through several mapping exercises. These included drawing a map of the United States from memory and drawing my childhood home from memory with my eyes closed. We then worked with a partner and attempted to draw a map from their school to their home based on their directions. Next, I created an imaginary city and made a key for description. 

 

During the research section of this project, I looked up additional artist for inspiration. This was another time art came to life for me. Viewing Yuni Kim Lang's "Comfort Hair", exposed societies view of women and the need to blend in. This piece celebrated individuality and how people no longer need to strive for the acceptance of others. 

This research inspired me to create a piece with something to say. I knew I wanted to use shadows to my advantage and take my abstract ideas and make them into some organic shapes. 

Concept: I wanted to display a destination in time. More specifically a time of uncertainty and confusion. I first thought about the aspects of humanity that leave people to question, with both a destination and path, uncertain. The only realm of humanity that fit these characteristics, for me, was space. Space is a big question mark for humanity, while intriguing and fascinating, science has yet to discover much about space. I wanted to overlap the lack of knowledge about space with an individuals destination in a time of questioning. I chose the representation of the moon, because for so long it remained part of the great unknown that is space. Now man has a great deal of knowledge about the moon, yet it sits untouchable to us in the sky. The moon is mysterious to humanity and only shows itself in sections at a time. For me, it sits as a reminder that we have limited knowledge depending on our perspective, but when we step back and look at the entire view, we can see everything clearly. This theme created a pattern in my life at the time and I wanted to exemplify that physically. 

Process: I started by sketching several ideas. I wanted my structure to draw the viewer in and have multiple layers, adding complexity. I drew a full moon and made it into three layers based on the grayscale and shading of the figure. 

I also wanted to create a negative space in order to demand the viewers' attention and so I knew these three layers must be floating. My structure needed to elude to the center to draw attention without taking away from the layers inside. 

I was conceptually trying to visualize the idea that unknown and confusing situations don't make sense from most angles, but when you walk away and look back, there is a "full moon" and the resolutions to your issues begin to show. 

I added several "star" like figures to resemble space, bit also to signify that there are many aspects that play a part in a full view and story. 

I wanted the shadows to play a large part in the final display, because I have attempted to describe a confusing and difficult destination in time and how one responds it "casts a shadow" on the rest of ones' life.