Teacher Name: Suzanne Makol Zamudio
Grade: 12
Materials: Acrylic on canvas
Dimensions: 12” × 12”
Artist Statement: It took a long time for me to realize that other people’s opinions about me and my art don’t matter, and that ultimately making art for myself is more important and meaningful than doing it for someone else. Painting and illustrating are the devices I use for self-expression and self-meditation, and they’ve always been integral parts of my life, especially when it comes to processing the world around me. I’ve always been especially fond of portraiture, both realistic and impressionistic, and in drawing the people around me I found a way to capture important figures in my life to reflect on later as my life changes and people come and go. Eventually, it dawned on me that I had never portrayed myself, so it became a mission of mine to capture myself as I am, focusing on how I look versus how I think of myself. With my usual medium, acrylic paint, I got to work creating a painting based off of a photograph a friend took of me a few months earlier, and the goal was to make it look as much like a photograph as possible, while also maintaining an interesting background that goes unexplained. The most impactful part of the piece was when looking at the result I realized that it was impossible for me not to influence the image with my own thoughts and ideas about myself, but the piece felt reflective of who I am, and not what anyone else thinks of me.
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