Textual Poaching

I am Brandon, And I'm a Dreamer

Artist's Statement:

This assignment was helpful for me personally, because as I’ve mentioned in previous pieces my search of self has always been a struggle. So to have to identify a part of myself, then explore it through art was a welcome challenge. The moment in class that we had to say “I am a ______” first drew the blank as written, but then immediately I thought “a dreamer”. I am a dreamer. That has been a constant since birth, I think.

So, how do you illustrate being a dreamer? At first I thought about taking clips from my favorite “Dreamer” characters, such as Will from A Knight’s Tale, and D’Artagnion from The Three Muskateers, and doing something with that…but I realized I had no idea how to rip the clips legally. So, then I thought of Inception, and how the dream sequences were inspired by surrealist paintings.

So, I picked some surrealist paintings I found online to insert my personality into. Although I don’t have the incredible skills of Tibor Kalman, who took two seemingly opposite things and created a whole, incredible image from it, I figured that a Duchamp style was more in my grasp. I decided I would simply “paint” myself into these in what I dub a ‘dream-ish silhouette’, which I thought fit the surreal/dream theme. The silhouette is shaky, childlike, and I used Gimp’s paintbrush (rather than pencil) tool, because it creates a less distinct figure. That shade of blue is my favorite color, and the color with which I identify myself. It’s a really simple addition, but it goes from being a surrealist statement to being illustrations of my dreams, which is metaphorical in a couple of different ways. It shows the magnitude and strangeness of a lot of my ideas, as well as the improbability of a lot of my ideas. In this assignment, I’m acknowledging my talent as well as its weakness.