Saachi Owen
Emanuel School
IDLE
Time-Based Forms
Oil, acrylic, charcoal, digital illustrations
My body of work is a visual collage of my identity, represented through self-portraits in varying media, and in various idle animations. The work exposes my own insecurities and indecisiveness around self-expression and the act of creating something to be viewed. My initial aversion to painting a self-portrait is the main reason that I created multiples, with each figure expressing a different emotional response to being on display. Through the repeated reworking and erasing of each piece, imprints of the previous layer are left behind, and inform what comes next.
My artmaking practice has been influenced by the study and interpretation of the following artists: Blu, Muto; Craig Ruddy; Edward Hopper; William Kentridge.
Marker's Commentary
This time-based work plays with the conventions of the Trompe-l'œil, in which the self-portrait images attached to the wall are animated. The drawing and painting act as contemporary vanitas, pictorially as a present-day version of the Dutch painter Samuel van Hoogstraten’s personal Letter Board series. The sophisticated understanding of animation techniques ranging from rotoscoping, stop motion and digital animation are demonstrated and effectively employed to create a tableaux vivant. The depiction of the wall on which these images come alive through simplistic drawings suggests intimacy with the self-portrait through the dynamic interaction of the drawings. The loose stylistic lines mimic doodling and reinforce the emotional motif of idleness as these static images come alive through animation, with a knowing nod to William Kentridge.
