My Six Emotions: Playfulness, Hate, Love, Lost, Worry, Depression

Playfulness – the quality of being light-hearted or full of fun.

For me the word playfulness draws connection to the word cheerfulness which links to the word bubbly. Hence, I try to convey playfulness through circular patterns which is done so via dripping paint.When you drip paint, you create circular shapes with additional splatter patterns. The splatters represent the liveliness when one is full of fun. The contrasting tones and sizes further adds into the element of excitement.I Dripped paint from different height to create splatters of different sizes using a straw while controlling the ratio of water and paint to create the different tones in the splashes.

Hate – feel intense dislike for.

Hate is a very intense feeling. When you hate you feel the inside of your heart burning up, tearing and opening up slowly. As you hate, hatred will slowly consume you letting the dark side take over, turning you into someone else.

I used a coil and used the burning end to slowly burn through the paper creating the line. The line shows how hate burns and tears up our soul and heart. The line opens up the with a dark background to show like the dark side is coming for you.

Love – a strong feeling of affection.Love is a strange thing it can make the strongest person or toughest person in the world to go weak, to go soft. Love makes you vulnerable. The use of wood and rope signifies toughness in a person. I purposely create the holes to show the vulnerability when love comes about. The slowly snapping ropes also helpings to show that love slowly breaks you apart when you do not know it. My interpretation of what love does to you in a visual way.

Lost – to describe the uncomfortable feeling of being in an unfamiliar situation

For this emotion, I was trying to creating a dreamy setting whereby a man is trapped in a place (limbo) where he is unable to escape and find his way out. The emotion lost was also inspired by a soundtrack called “Theme” from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. In my opinion, the piece sounded like a man being trapped in a world where he is trying to escape but it always goes back to a loop. The dreamy setting is created with the use of baby powder. I spread the baby powder out on the black board to create like a misty and foggy scene. 

Worry –  anxious or troubled about actual or potential problems.I am a thinker and sometimes I feel like I think too much. I over analyse things too much and most of the times, the things I worry about do not even happen at all. So, I feel that worrying always leads to nothing or it leads to further emptiness.

For the interpretation of worry, I used crushed paper to create a very messy composition to represent the chaotic mind i.e. looks like brain cells working. Next the crushed paper mark making will slowly fade off as it moves from right to left symbolising that worrying leads to nothing or that it just leads to more emptiness. Besides I crushed the right side to add further bring out the messy state of mind.

Depression – feelings of severe despondency and dejection.

Victims of depression are mostly unaware that they have depression. Depression is an illness, it is not a choice. Sometimes people we think are fine are the ones that need our help the most. From the outside they might seem fine, but sometimes they are suffering deep down.

I created this by using pen knife and my finger nails. The cuts were made by pen knife which represents self-harm. And as you look closer, you can see the marks made by my finger nails, these represents the pain they are suffering from the inside which we do not understand.

Overall, I think this mark making project is very fun and interesting as it is a very open project whereby you can share your ideas through creative means. Beside, I think it is very cool how everyone has their own unique and distinct styles and very often you can point out a person’s characteristics and personalities through their mark makings. I also feel that sometimes aesthetically pleasing works are not necessary good because I feel that the stories and interpretation from the artists themselves are more important and gives the artwork a life. (In my opinion) One thing I learnt from doing this is the importance of referencing. Sometimes when you reach an idea block, referencing from other sources for creative ideas is actually useful. However, it is good to reference and pick out certain good points from other sources but I try not to refer to it too much as our idea will start becoming similar. Another thing I learnt is patience. Actually I am not really a patient guy, so during the process, I got quite annoyed and frustrated on a few occasions as I was unable to achieve what I wanted. But oh well, life is about success and failure, and only through failure will you learn. Success and learn!!! 😀