Artist's Statement
With the ever constant thought that college is just a few months away, I’ve been thinking a lot about who I am, and who I want to be when I go to college, which has made me think a lot about how people see me, and what I allow people to see. I suppose I could say I’ve always had a bit of a fascination for people who are able to wear different faces in front of different audiences. Until fairly recently, I was not aware that I am one of those people. Upon being faced with this “experimental” project, I decided that I wanted to explore these hidden sides of myself, but more importantly, the side of me that is extremely insecure, very prone to hiding. I wanted to drag the part of me that wants to hide and not be seen by anyone, out into the open.
Through the means of audio, writing and visual pieces, I’ve tried to bring this hidden self on to the surface through various speakers, tones, and symbols. In the writing portion of this project, I wrote several poems and prose, all focusing around this hiding concept, but each in a different style and tone. I started with an idea or occasion and then wrote poems around these ideas, adding in imagery and metaphors where I felt necessary. I then took these poems into audio and interpreted the writing, added music loops and my own MIDI loops to create audio representations of the poems. In design I planned out a visual representation of the hiding idea, four canvases depicting self portraits, each different while still tied together by hiding. I linked these canvases to my other works through the website that I made, which uses the artwork as a banner. On the site I have the audio files of my poems and their text counterparts.
The one thing that I hope people will be able to take away from viewing these pieces is the ability to realize that despite the smiles people may put on, that there can be vastly difference sides to people, including themselves. I hope that people will be able to have a greater understanding of why people put up these walls and masks and the importance of them.
-Megan Conway