Keegan Casey: capstone

Abstract

The artist's statement: Self/Portrait is an accumulation of poems and photos which reflect a disconnect within myself and with life. It reflects the confusing, jumbled, cobbled togetherness of my current experience. This piece is an exercise in self-understanding. The places these poems and pictures come from are within me - they are me - and I have woven them together to create a space for them to exist outside of me, as an attempt to bridge the divide between me and reality. I thought that if I could create the right thing, I could understand these feelings. Layered and translucent photos show me in them, but only shadows, reflections, parts of myself. Scrap wood is cobbled together, providing abstract structure. A concurrence of all the poems I've written recently is inked on this wood/spine; the bones/words extend outwards, traveling through imagery/flesh, fading and warping. The result of existing in these spaces of disconnect causes deterioration. This project began as a simple idea before its flatness and rigid simplicity no longer felt sufficient and I gravitated towards material. An artistic timeline and daily practice to ground me and connect me to my creative energy and self. However, as time progressed, I started missing days, a poem here, a photo there. Therapy sessions – with the same goals - instead revealed a sense of disconnect with myself, with feeling, with life, with connections, and thus, with my art. This existential disconnect extended into my project, becoming a major theme within it. I felt this thing I was creating needed to be textured, messy, nebulous, vulnerable – it needed to reflect the weight, complexity, and realness of these confrontations I am having with myself. Why do I feel this way? Why can't I feel more? What can I do to change this? This accumulation is the result of these lines of questioning, repeating in my head and on paper, while looking inwards and outwards for answers.