I’ve always been inspired by the artist Frida Kahlo, how she painted directly how she felt on to the canvas without regard for depicting reality just the reality of how she felt. I used to shy away from creating any artwork that was too personal or about myself, feeling as if it would be uninteresting and somehow felt self centred. Frida known for her many self portraits and artworks that almost document the timeline of her life. Simply said that “I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best.” this changed my perspective and I started to feel any subject I tried to explore in my artwork that wasn’t personal to me felt unbalanced in a way as my own opinion was the only one being heard in the artwork. It was just another opinion on a subject I had no real connection to. Whereas when I created something really personal, the process was therapeutic, the end result was honest, not offering an answer and hopefully connecting to the viewer on a base human level.

The second image above is the painting titled “The Two Frida’s”. She often explored her feeling like she was straddling between two identities. The Mexican side of her mother and the European side of her father. I found this very inspiring and relatable in my project as I was exploring a lot of similar themes about being two halves of separate things. And I cant think of another artist that explores this so directly and consistently.

While working on this project I’ve been reading this incredibly inspiring book on ancient Japanese manga dating back to the 17th century. In the book it’s said that manga imagery was mostly categorized into “satirizing manners, customs & situations. Satirizing society and politics and satirizing human nature.

It amazed me that this use of humour mixed with surreal imagery dated so far back and clearly had such a impact on how manga, cartoons and animation would develop even 100s of years later in the animation that would inspire me growing up. It also got me thinking about this connection that humour seemed to have with surrealism. Both rely on setting up an expectation of something ordinary, then divert it entirely in a way you never expected. The way the manga illustrations could go from bizarre and comical to exploring the inner demons of the human psyche is something I always loved. As I feel humour keeps both the artist and viewer grounded and level with each other, allowing it to feel more human and relatable when the artwork shifts into the heavier subjects. It’s inspiring to know something that didn’t always take itself so seriously was still respected as a art from. The artwork in the book seems to be pushing the boundaries of the artists imaginations as if they were testing to see if there was any limit to how creative they could be.

I recently read the illustration book by artist Manjit Thapp. In it she tells the story of her mental health and state of my mind though-out a year through short poetic sentences and her incredible artwork. I was inspired by her ability to capture the feeling of time passing in still images. I wanted my artwork to reflect the process and time that goes into creating an artwork.

So much of this project was inspired by watching the illustration master Kim Jung Gi live drawing videos, which I become obsessed with. The way he draws without hesitation while keeping so much detail in his work got me wondering if he had the whole artwork mapped out in his mind or if he was improvising. He also talks about drawing perspective and anatomy which is something I always felt was holding me back. Since I’m self taught and never studied art I feel I skipped a lot of the basic fundamental skills of drawing. Which inspired me to explore the balance between skill and creativity within the creating process.