Self

Leaving college and starting university makes you ask a lot of questions. What course am I going to do? Where will it take me? Can I actually succeed in the world? Where am I going to study? Should I move out? These all make you question yourself, and who you are. 

So who am I?

Am I defined by my body? Is it purely my physicalities that make me who I am? This is how people recognise me, isn't it? Every day I walk to my friends and they know it's me because I look like me, not because I am the same person inside. Or is it by something more scientific? Do genetics define me?

"Muddy Underworld", self portrait, water based oils

Unlike a lot of people around my age I am confident about my body. Not because it's perfect, but because it isn't. My flaws make me me, like the wrinkle above my belly button and the scar on my knee. And this body will always be mine, even if I do end up in a "muddy underworld" as Adeimantus talked of in Plato's Republic. 

"Who are you?", Oil pastels on wooden mirror

Looking further into my naked body, on an old mirror saved from my Auntie's skip, I drew from various photographs in a black oil pastel. Along with this there are old newspaper clippings, history of the country that surely does make up part of me, my country and my community. 

But more than this, the mirror which is central to this piece makes the audience look and think; who am I? 

"Can I Be Frida?", Self portrait, oil paint

My family tree has always interested me. Obviously, it's part of who I am. Who my parents and grandparents are. I've traced it back, looking into all of the people whose genetics help make up my DNA. Because from a scientific point of view, this is who we are. A series of A's T's C's and G's that make up a unique code that make up me, coming from our parents. 

Is this all I am? Am I defined by my family? Must I find my creativity somewhere in the family tree, find my love of jewellery and philosophy there too?