XXXXX is my partner, but this piece isn’t about our love. Our personal relationship has impacted my life in such a way that its existence marks the death of an old way of life for me. Portraiture has always been a way for me to nurture relationships and feelings for characters/individuals I imagine as perfect. Creating drawings in graphite, charcoal and ink let me indulge in my desire to get closer to the subject, connecting physically with paper in substitute of the subject.

 

Monarch is my first divergence from my usual idealization of a person -- I have learned to appreciate the raw and uncensored reality of one. Prints of digitally-captured photos juxtapose the reality of their being to the image of them in my head. This first, true physical connection demands a more layered landscape -- a penetrating sensation in order to be visually translated. Although featured in memorial-style drawings and above an altar, the subject is not dead. The figure is alive yet celebrated as a monarch that is more than man -- the altar is put on display in memorial of my past.

 

Expressions, phrases and form were put together as the connective tissues within the installation -- contributions from me and our personal relationship. In the piece I am able to self-reflect -- the project could not be complete without me, I recognize that I am a vital part of it. As realistic as his depiction is on this wall, this is still my perspective and the piece is limited/warped by that.