Today, as I am working on another image featuring a figure with the eyes removed, (such as Transmogrification:Figure I above), I ponder why it is I like to remove the eyes so very often. I suppose there could be many reasons, and I tend not to like to analyze my art too deeply (well not to others, anyway) as I think it destroys the ability of the viewer to self-interpret if everything is clearly defined.
However, I can't help but remember a very long ago past day in an art class in high school. I used to draw a lot of figures and portraits and I would always black out the eyes back then, or have them cast in such deep shadow that the figure was basically eyeless. We had a substitute this one day and she was looking at me drawing some of my usual fare and asked to look at what I was doing. So I obliged her and she picked up the paper taking a long pondering look. I can't remember her name or what she looked like but I remember what she said; she said that missing eyes were indicative of "a lonely soul". Perhaps...perhaps not. Who knows. I tend to think different things can have more than one meaning depending upon the individual (of course there are archetypes, but in general...), but that comment always struck a chord as being right, at least for me.
My initial reaction was annoyance as she handed the drawing back. I was annoyed because I knew it was spot on and the thought that this stranger could know something intimate about me from a simple drawing really bothered me. I started putting eyes on all my portraits and figures, not wanting to be that exposed again.
Some things change and some things stay the same, I guess...
No comments:
Post a Comment