GET TO KNOW ME My Artist Statement |
Life is only meant to be experienced once. Each milestone, surpassed with its own unique struggles, forms who we are. "Coming of Age" is one of these crucial milestones, and as a recently graduated student I decided to document my coming of age story. Throughout my last year of high school I decided to capture every happy moment, bittersweet memory, and huge achievement through the lens of my camera.
While my camera was by my side for the entire semester, what I couldn't capture using it, I captured through Polaroid photos. Having physical windows into my memories is very important to me, so I chose to group these memories together and take pinhole photos that could be included in the showcase of my life. As you look through these windows into my memories, you see the world through my eyes, experiencing my milestones as I did. While showing my memories was my main goal, I wanted to convey the aging of memories as well. Through blurring and distorting my childhood pinhole photo and my digital manipulation photos I made a representation of how it feels to slowly forget your childhood memories as they become more distant and less familiar. Losing clarity within memories is a bittersweet loss, as although I may be moving past the experiences that made me, I’m beginning to create new experiences for myself and cherishing my life as I move forward. A theme that has remained constant throughout all of my milestones is my creativity and my art. My art has changed form alongside me as I've moved through the phases of my life, and while some of my love for art has left me as I've matured, and some of it has changed shape, it has remained a consistent guiding hand throughout my life, an expression for my emotions, thoughts, and ideas. In a final expression of my creativity for my high school career, I digitally manipulated a childhood photo and a current photo to create a visible representation of how my artistic mind has changed from a child to now. In the representation of my creativity I included my childhood interests and how while I still love those things, they’ve become a more subdued and internal part of me instead of something that freely flows out of my mind. As you explore my photography journey and look into my mind, you're going to view my experiences through my eyes, and discover how I felt for so many of my firsts. My memories and milestones are incredibly important to me, and I aspire to share the profound emotions that I've experienced throughout this past year. My name is Daryan, and through the documentation of my childhood, my milestones, and my 2023 senior year, you're going to discover what makes me, me. |