Self Portrait Final Project: Frances Martinez

    

Frances Martinez, The Seven Selves, 2024

This piece is a mixed media collage piece called The Seven Selves. I was influenced by the works of Cindy Sherman, Ana Mendietta, and Frida Khalo. Cindy Sherman has an animated way of creating selfies with her own creative self-expression. Ana Mendietta is infamous for her siluetas and use of materials. Frida Khalo uses distortion to influence her artworks that resonate through pain, suffering, and hope. “Kahlo suffered extensively for much of her life, and the most moving section of the show is devoted to her ecosystem of medical devices. But Kahlo did not conceal her pain, revealing her casts and leather braces with metal buckles in her work and turning her plaster corsets into art with elaborate designs of flowers, even a hammer and sickle.” (Frida Kahlo Was a Painter, a Brand Builder, a Survivor. And So Much More | NY Times) These 3 artists inspired me to make my own original piece of different selves that include me drinking my morning coffee, breaking a piece of bread, and other selfies of just being weird and genuinely myself.

    I included selfies I took myself except for the orange and pink selfie. I wanted to create and capture a sense of my own personality, with some of these photos being taken when I was in a dark place, and others when I was in a more peaceful, carefree state. I wanted to collage them to also create a sense of chaos but peace and brightness at the same time. I took the time to let this idea come to me, instead of overthinking what it should be, it is a feeling that is almost overwhelming but sparked my curiosity to dive deeper into this concept. “The first step is to get an idea. Not an easy idea but one that makes me go, “Oh my god. No, no, no, no.” An idea that gets stuck in my stomach. Then, I get obsessed and, finally, I say, “OK, I’m going to do it.” That moment of decision is very important. Then I do it. But a piece always starts with an idea that I don’t like — something I’m afraid of — and going into the unknown. I also wanted to portray a representation of the LGBTQ+ community using the color of the Pride flag. (Being Marina Abramović, Even When No One’s Looking)

    I decided to continue my discovery of the use of materials in an unconventional way. The materials I used all had a purpose behind my concept. I also wanted to use the Pride colors to show my identity and use different candid photos of myself in an unorthodox way, placing them along the foam board with some drawings touching and others not. I used a foam board to represent both strength and fragility. I believe that we are all fragile and sensitive in some way, but we always want to present to the world as strong. I printed out photographs of my selfies and then I traced them on tracing paper, cut them out, and glued them to this foam board. I wanted to challenge myself using tracing paper as the main media, versus transferring it to a different type of paper. Also, I wanted to use photography so I thought drawing the photographs would be a unique take. "Photography can enslave and revictimize, Weems has shown us; it can also, potentially, set us free from our inherited bias and expectations." (NY Times: How Carrie Mae Weems Rewrote the Rules of Image-Making) I used acrylic paint to paint the clothing on my selfies. Further, I used this silver holographic paper and cut out these triangle shapes to represent shards of glass, like a piercing feeling. I splashed some watered-down black paint all over the piece, and finally I finished it with mod podge.

I enjoyed this creative process and the way I used the materials. Challenging myself to push the materials differently definitely made the process more enjoyable. I wanted to portray a message of identity and being unapologetically yourself, whether it be sad, silly, depressed, or happy.