i added two new pieces in the art section today. one of them is amy lee of course, her heart is in her hands (as a reference to that one line in good enough) and she's wearing this beautiful alexander mcqueen dress that inspired me to draw that. the other is a similar, but more meaningful drawing. it's a self portrait and my heart is ripped out of my chest and it's all bloody and gross. i originally planned it to just be a cool drawing and that's it, but while i was working on an artist statement for another class i realized that my art is just... not that interesting i guess? like yeah, my work is pretty to look at, but most of my pieces have no real meaning behind them, they're mostly portraits. i have my birth of angels series, which is definitely an outlier to this, but outside of this site i don't bring that series up that much if at all these days. i want to create more things with real meaning and intent behind them. i want to be able to use art as an emotional release and to process everything i've been through. for the most part, i've been failing at that.
the more i thought about why i don't usually go that route with my art, the more i realized that this problem goes DEEP. going back to birth of angels, i was nervous when it came to sharing them. the meaning behind them is linked to my struggles with an ed, but i'm afraid that people will see those drawings and think i just made them to be edgy, especially if they knew what i looked like. growing up, i've been told that i'm overdramatic, too sensitive, attention-seeking, etc. for opening up about things i'm going through and how i expressed those emotions. it led to me doing harmful things to myself and when i tried getting help about that, i was shut down once more. people saw me, a teenage girl who wears all black and listens to shit like evanescence and my chemical romance and thought "she's just being edgy, she'll grow out of it, her problems aren't real", when in fact they were very much real and i'm still dealing with the emotional turmoil from it all. if i used art as an outlet for my trauma, would people still think the same?
i think i stuck to realism and portraits and stuff because it's a comfort zone of sorts. it's safe. i can show my family and people around me all the pretty things i can draw and nobody will question me or think i'm an edgelord, we can all just look at the pretty pictures and that's it. it was working for awhile, but i've been feeling unsatisfied with my work. i don't want to be held back by my comfort zone and what others would think of me. i want to show how i truly feel, put my heart on display for everyone to see. when i came to this realization, that self portrait became something so meaningful to me, this is the bridge between what i've been doing for the past few years and what i will start doing in the future. this is a new era of me, a rebirth. i can't wait to see what i can do.
-malice
ps- just realized that the last three drawings in my art section have anatomical hearts haha. they're so pretty and fun to draw.