“I am dedicated to making beautiful things, and I have limited my subject to myself.”
So begins the introduction to “Gravitas,” Allison Jamieson-Lucy ’12’s series of charcoal self-portraits on display in Smith Gallery.
Jamieson-Lucy began working on the self-portraits last semester, though most of the pieces in “Gravitas” were completed over the past month.
“It’s sort of an exploration of self and self-image through self-portrait,” Jamieson-Lucy said. “I think that self-portraits are really interesting, in that I am always available to be a subject. I have to find a mirror or a camera or a webcam and I can make art.”
The exhibit arose from a Mentorship Advanced Project in drawing Jamieson-Lucy, who is an Art/Biochemistry double major, completed this semester. “Gravitas” addresses themes of body image and self-representation.
“It was a big hurdle to get over drawing myself naked, and then accepting that I was going to put it up for the whole school to see,” Jamieson-Lucy said. “One of the things that I wanted to work through in my art was to look at body image and how by drawing you can get over stuff that you couldn’t get over just by trying to get over it another way.”
The portraits provide large-scale perspectives of Jamieson-Lucy and make use of innovative subject positioning and light and dark additive and subtractive marks. Jamieson-Lucy drew the portraits from video stills, created by recording PhotoBooth videos of herself.
Jamieson-Lucy attributed her positioning ingenuity to time spent in Figure-Drawing Club and inspiration from artist Jenny Saville.
“Drawing is a really great way to take charge of yourself and your self image. It’s surprisingly healing,” Jamieson-Lucy said. “It’s really hard to be mad about how you look when you’ve just spent eight hours drawing yourself and you put all that effort and care and attention into something that’s you.”
“Gravitas” will be on display in Smith Gallery until Friday.
Ed and Christine • Jan 15, 2012 at 7:44 pm
Bravo!