TO OBSESS

I knew I wanted to work with the idea of obsession for a while, and figuring out what to do with it was the challenge. I originally thought of repurposing old childhood photographs and making a mobile with them. But then I saw an edit on Grey's Anatomy, and the idea of surgery and the body essentially rejecting the organ stuck out to me.

I printed out an unfiltered image of my face where I felt most vulnerable, and carved into it with an exacto-knife, turning the act of dissecting your features into a literal motion. I now know to rule out surgeon as possible future professions.

From the outside in I brainstormed. The choice of materials, the way I would've created them, and what the symbolism behind them meant stayed in my head during this process.

I crumpled up tissue paper, hot glued it into a sphere, and glued a ton of blue beads onto it to mimic a blue eyeball. By adding it in, I created a whole new layer to the story behind the piece. From a personal project on insecurity and beauty standards, it became a work critiquing the Eurocentric beauty standards and how they creep into ethnic groups across the world.

Once I finished adding in the eyeball, the art still felt vanilla and regular. I was eating candy while I worked on this piece, and just so happened to reach for a Twizzler. I thought to myself "doesn't this kind of look like flesh?" and got the idea to tear and glue it into the eye socket. To make it look more realistic, though, I took a hot glue gun and dragged the flaming metal across the candy to give it a more organic feel.
 

The final part of this project was the original chunk of my face that was clung to the face with a few blood vessels. I had to think of what to do with the empty eye area and then got the idea of having the "original eye" glare at the face. I took hot glue and a black bead and pasted them into the socket. Not only did it glare at the new blue eye, but it also followed the viewer around. I'm gonna be honest I was a little scared that I created a living artwork, but the way it glares at you changes depending on the angle. It can stare with contempt, or it could plead for help.