Tuesday, January 1, 2013

the beauty within


I created this for the annual Scholastic Teen Art and Writing competition this year. I wanted to use art to express my feelings about the meaning of beauty. This is my artist's statement: 

"We live in a world where our perception of beauty has been distorted by TV, magazines, and the media. Every day we see advertisements for new ways to become “beautiful”. Reality has been glossed over by makeup, plastic surgery, and Photoshop – and our idea of beauty has become little more than an unreachable dream of looking as perfect as an actress modeling lipstick on a billboard. Every girl is dissatisfied and insecure with the way she looks. This is why I created this artwork – to show that true beauty is not the fake, skin-deep perfection that has ruined how we perceive ourselves. True beauty comes from within; it is the light inside our souls that forms our personalities, thoughts, words and deeds. I created this to force the viewer to rethink about how they judge beauty – whether by the outward appearance or by the light of the heart. I hope that as the world around us becomes increasingly deceived about the definition of beauty, we can remember that what makes a person truly beautiful is not what their face looks like, but what their soul looks like."

 I depicted two girls in my artwork: on that is considered to be beautiful by the world, and another one who would be considered less beautiful, or even ugly. I made a window in each of their chests looking inside to their "souls". The "beautiful" one has a shattered, darkened light bulb; the "ugly" one has a light bulb glowing with beautiful light. To me, true beauty comes from within - do not judge people by their outward appearances, because it's what is on the inside that makes a person truly beautiful. 



First, I made a sort of wooden "canvas" and made two holes for the windows. (My dad helped with this part :). After sketching out the figures, I made a collaged background using tempera paint, Elmer's glue (mixed with water) and various beauty ads torn from magazines. Then, I painted the figures using white tempera paint and drew over them with charcoal. I created their soul-window-boxes with cardboard and paint and used mirrors, light bulbs and wiring to create the interior of the boxes .


This was a way for me to express how I feel about beauty.

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