My Gaze
The last piece I included is a mixed media drawing of myself but through the lens of my own gaze. Through the pandemic I feel like the way I thought and interacted with myself was drastically changed. My struggles with body image and gender became more and more apparent as I had immensely more time to reflect and obsess over them. This portrait references that and was the conclusion of a small project I did in 2021 where I drew quick sketches and self portraits of myself every day for about a week. This culminated in a final portrait where I wanted to draw attention to my own insecurities and struggles about my body and feeling trapped in societal notions of gender and sexuality. This portrait is nearly life size and extremely detailed so viewers are confronted with the almost nauseating reality of how my mind views myself.
