FUKKO
Ever wonder what it means , to be you? Have you asked yourself, what does it mean to be human?
Within the movie, the word "Ghost" is used to refer to someone's consciousness while a "shell" is the cybernetic body, much like the situation with Major Kusanagi.
So I ask you, if we reached a future where a mind can be copied and the body replaced in a synthetic form, what would be the definition of a human? "What exactly is the 'ghost' —the essence— in the cybernetic 'shell'?". “Where is the boundary between human and machine when the differences between the two become more philosophical than physical?"
Do you become a shadow of your former self?
So a 'shell of a person' is someone that feels empty inside, they have been through so much or seen so much that they are left as only empty and easily broken, they have been left empty of hope, empty of emotions, empty of dreams. Could someone feel this way about themselves when they look in the mirror, and realize (exactly what you are asking yourself right now).
The relationship between the mind and the body, the mind being the ghost and body being the machine. This position for thinking that the two are of the same category. If these two are not in the same category, then trying to find a relationship between the two as if they were must fail?
Eventually you become curious about your own identity sending you in an unforeseen direction. Your consciousness intertwines. The consciousness is “something like the product of multiple, layered computer programs running on the hardware of the brain.” “This becomes an evolutionary process, purely physical in nature, in which sensory information and other biological functions combine and grow correspondingly more complex over time.” But what exactly is evolving, you or the machine?
As humans are we constantly moving in a direction to avoid actual human traits of differences? I’m talking about are we moving towards a future where this idea of a human can only be seen as one thing. The description of beauty and perfection, overrides us, causing everyone to believe in upgrades to feel like they meet the norm of society’s idea of beauty.
STARMAN
I present this image as what I see within myself, as a black man, what I see in my brothers. Using some lyrics, infused with my words. I will also express my emotion.
It's hard to adapt when you're black, crawling through a systematic maze and you're trapped in a living hell. I saw people say, the reason things are happening is because of “their upbringing, their environment”, but what is the reason why some of us are there? Our male role models drug dealers and thugs. And when we grow up, we learned what racism was. Teachers would say, lil black boys got a place in this world, like hanging from trees or dead in the streets. All them boys they killed, they looked just like me, like us. Not like Brandon and Chandler but Malik and Kareem. I was born with a target. I’ve got it tattooed to my skin.
But thank god they gave us 28 days to celebrate this skin, they spent 400 years killing us over.
I got beef with a sick society that doesn't give a shit and they too quick to say goodbye to me. I see no changes, all I see is racist faces. Misplaced hate makes disgrace to races. And how can these people judge me? They ain't my peers, and in all these years they ain't never love me.
Society has created this image of the black man, why because I feel as the black man, we were created by society. The color of our skin, the way we dress, our music, society made it a label as being seen as ignorant even or a joke, as thugs, criminals, only seen as someone who is lesser than the white man and because of society, we constantly conform to this. Institutional racism through the eyes of the viewer is prevalent because of how media and history portrays us. All I learned in class was about how powerful the white man was, taking over and enslaving us. Using us to create this America, then we had to fight back to earn this so-called equality that we have in America. Treated like animals. Sitting in class wondering why this happened because I cannot understand what is different from the person sitting next to me besides my skin color.
I demand that you reverse the role, give us the same opportunities, equality. LOOK AT ME THE SAME WAY YOU LOOK AT YOUR FELLOW WHITE MAN AND YOU GIVE ME THE SAME RESPECT. Imagine being told you look like a drug dealer, or “I’m scared of you”, because I come to class in a hoodie, standing 6 foot 5, don’t talk and covered in tattoos. “You must play basketball, that's why you go to school here?” You think that's not offensive, you’re wrong, you’ve labeled me. You have judged me based on my appearance. I am offended. I live in a fucking world where I imagine what it would be like to be “white” imagine that because being white is an automatic approval, acceptance, a privilege.
But I’m bigger than that. I accept my skin. I’m the sun and the moon. I'm the light and the dark. As a black man, I have power to opress my oppressor, supress my opponent, channel my ancestors, he wouldn’t condone it. It ain't about black or white because we human. I look at everyone the same, I already see colors, but it's not your skin, it's your auras. I won’t judge you or assume anything without first learning you.
The media really just trying to make a villain. They don’t know me but automatically label me. They fear me. I fit the description, a “n%*#@&”. Imagine being told there was no way you made that, but not from shock or disbelief. I just take the pain and paint a picture. I’m just a black spade spawn out the nebula. Emotions got me looking at the universe differently. Being held back, because I’m black. And I, I believe I can break away and be somebody. There is no need to fear me. If you take your time to hear me, maybe you can learn to cheer me. But how you gonna learn to grow if you ain’t listening.
SELF PORTRAIT VENTRUVIAN (Unfinished)
Imagine being an idealistic image of yourself, a dream version, free from flaws and weaknesses. The person you feel will provide you with the utmost amount of happiness and self-contentment. Imagine being accepted and adorned by others.
My entire life, I have struggled to find acceptance within the many groups of people that surround me. I always strived to fit in and conform to society. The older I became, the more detached and different I felt from those that surrounded me. Kids would always belittle me for the flaws I had, making me feel uncomfortable with my own image. That constant wants and need to fit in destroyed me. It turned me into an introvert, who strays away from groups of people, hiding myself. Overall I am not comfortable with myself, because society has warped the image inside my mind of what the perfect image of a human is.
As a whole, we tend to create these idealistic images of men and women, which dates back many centuries. Humans develop stereotypes, placing certain races, ideas, and cultures into classifications of what they believe to be typical. If you do not look or resemble this image, you are considered ugly, different, unvalued despite what’s on the inside. As a whole, humans don’t care about what lies beneath but are solely concerned with the superficial aspect of the species. The prevalence of the “perfect image” is consistently reinforced through social media and the likes and ostracization, witnessed by those who embrace their differences, eventually gets to you. It causes you to turn that hatred and contempt inward, restarting the cycle of self-deprecation and forcing you to make changes that align with societal standards. It’s human nature to want to be accepted, it’s survival of the fittest. If we do not conform, we face hatred and if we are not confident enough in ourselves, we fall prey to it. Leaving us to never be truly content with the person we are… the person I am.
Now imagine those who also struggle with this, their insecurities tearing them apart from the inside. Distressing their mind, believing that the only way for them to be happy is to alter themselves. They go through drastic measures -like bodily alterations or a drastic change in eating habits- because they feel they are not perfect and these are all socially constructed ideas of the perfect being.
Now I bring the aspect of the future, creating an image of myself, reconstructed in the format of Leonardo's da Vinci’s “Ventruvian Man.” The “Ventruvian man” is his own reflection on human proportion and perfect symmetry. My body is split apart and being pulled together with an emphasis on the idea of creating the perfect version of myself. I am portraying the future, where technology is available to be able to alter our bodies drastically, almost like a video game where you create your own character. Through this process of body alteration, we slowly begin to lose our own identity. We stary from the path of self-acceptance, and instead, seek social acceptance from others. This technology will allow us to mold ourselves into the perfect or wanted version of ourselves, so we fit within societal norms. As humans, it has become normalized to judge and discriminate against those who are different in terms of skin color, looks, weight, gender, and sexuality. Machines lack the ability to feel, and the more I reconstruct myself, the more I lose my own self, becoming someone else.
TOUCH STARVATION
An unwanted feeling, a representation of holding on wanting to give touch, to feel but the other is just there, was there, pulling, dripping away from you, radiating cold energy.
Do you not desire to feel, to connect?
I do, It is a part of my being, its stimulating.
But some of us have entered a gateway to depression. What comes out is touch-starved, lonely, stressed and tired.
The longer I go without feeling, the deeper I get into my head. The deeper I get, the less I feel. The less I sleep. The more I think about how it would be to feel that contact. My imagination takes over, causing me to only think about thoughts (the wrong choices I made that sent me through that gate)... losing touch with my own reality. My imagination is suffocating. The less I want to feel, to express, I become accustomed to numbness. My drive diminishes, the thought of touching myself is sickening.
Does your skin not hunger for touch, the touch of another human being, to feel connected and accepted as a whole?
STARBOY
The infinite essence of the sun pierced rays into each of our spirits. Regardless of our experiences on the physical plane, we are infinite. As infinite as the universe itself, and the stardust that runs through the veins of our very being. Transforming the black body into the cosmos, eternal - residing in a spiritual dimension.
Within the visible spectrum we have racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and discrimination. But if I look in the UV spectrum, which is beyond the comprehension of the human eye, the black body is a site of magic. Every black person deserves to see themselves adorned by the stars.
WEREWOLF TRANSFORMATION
Imagine how painful it is to change, to become something new. Developing into something else , a new form, but still having the same soul? Changing physically but the pain causes a chain reaction, turning you inside out emotionally and mentally. This however adds change to your very soul, but based on the circumstances of your environment, this change can be detrimental. This change causes you to lose hope, to lose your own will reversing into a natural state of survival. You no longer care for others, you seek only to take, to destroy, becoming selfish, using others but it was others that caused this change. It was the “others” who took root on your being, implanting themselves so deep into your pain, you felt nothing but sadness. Overwhelmed, exhausted of trying to fight this thing that has been trying to tear itself from out underneath your skin. You give up, you no longer care what is or what isn’t, nothing matters, people constantly disappoint you, disappearing. Everyone becomes a memory, but with the change these memories become nothing. Who were they? What did they want from you, what did you want from them? Did you want love? Did you want to feel wanted? A connection that wasn’t based off superficial media of today’s societal norms? People lie to you, hoping it’ll cause some type of hope but you see right through it. Walking facades, ghost but you know what is actually interesting the fact that the only disappointment, the only one disappearing is yourself. You are the root of all your problems, stuck trying to change into something you believe will bring you happiness. This happiness doesn’t come from the others, it comes from you but you can’t even accept yourself and in the end you change into a being who feels nothing.
ANGEL OF DEPRESSION
Dear God, I created a being whose soul is being tormented by the demon of depression. The depression swallows everything, chains the being down, engraves words used to break down one’s own self into the flesh, insecurities, and flaws developed within; you are more aware than ever. These words engraved like tattoos are the chains. The angel, the light source at the pinnacle, is disintegrating at the hands of darkness, eventually becoming darkness itself. Is the only way to break free from depression, to be consumed? Ultimately this being will turn into nothingness, and this nothingness creates the idea of suicide, eternal sleep when the mind reaches its final breaking point. Depression wins, leaving nothing behind.
As depression wins, one’s humanity disappears and becomes unrecognizable. Constantly repeating through a cycle of failures, again and again only to let these failures make you who you are because you are so used to these failures; from people to goals, constantly being let down by others— but that shouldn’t matter, right? But in turn you are constantly letting yourself down, over and over again. You seek consistency, forgiveness, trust, love, and acceptance, and you cannot find it within yourself. But you want me to find trust within you, to love you and follow you... but I feel as though you are not even here, as if you don’t exist at all.
This being I created is me. I wake up every morning and look in the mirror and see nothing but negativity, these thoughts eat me alive. I can physically see this demon of depression lingering around me like a fucking cloud, its hands grabbing on to me, its voices screaming every weakness and flaw I have repeated throughout the day. I have to deal with people every day, constantly pretending everything is okay, pretending that I’m happy. Negative thoughts play tricks on my mind, I still feel a sense of hope but isn’t that what the demon wants me to feel? So it can feed off each drop of hope I have to satisfy its own hunger? This depression is consummation, it is consuming my mind first, then it will consume my body, then eventually everything including my soul.
Personally God, I want you to pray for me. Every day I feel like the titan Atlas, and I can’t take it anymore. I think about life after death consistently due to my parents, since I pretty much grew up in Church, to follow and believe in you. I can’t make the decision whether or not something like you exists beyond this reality. I feel as though I am slowly getting weaker. I don’t even know how much longer I can hold this weight up, it just grows heavier and heavier. Will this weight bring me to my knees, break my bones and my body? Why can’t I lift it? Every day I feel the same way and every day I feel worse, what is my limit? I’m scared of allowing depression to consume me but I already feel consumed. It is as if depression is a damn child, playing games with me, laughing in my face, teasing me with the hope only to swallow it the moment I reach for it. I’m living in a cycle and people tell me to get help... how do you help someone that is only happy when they are asleep? And sleeping just makes it worse. I remember every dream I have vividly. I can’t tell you how often I’ve woken up feeling that happiness only to feel it be crushed the moment I realize I’m living in a nightmare. Why am I like this? Why did you, that I was taught to love, make me like this? Why do I feel so much hatred for people, envy and jealousy? Why do I feel like I don’t belong, don’t fit in to my environment? I’m not like everyone else but I am just like everyone else; yet I can feel the separation, so I just close myself off. Believing closing myself off allows me to feel less, since the more I feel, the more I’m consumed. I look up ways to kill myself without pain every fucking night, nobody knows this, and nobody would ever, since everyone thinks everything is okay. Since everyone claims to know me from the inside fucking out and my intentions apparently. People, society, humanity, so damn funny to me, how we separate ourselves so much when we are literally no different from each other, we are all human beings but people look and act like demons too, making me feel less than a human being. I feel as if I am nothing. I know people care, people want to help, want me to get help, but how do you help this? My mind is broken. I have a good life, go to a good school, a good family... but inside myself, I feel no better. My mind is in a constant battle of positive and negative. The negatives are overwhelming the positives, I can’t see a future where I’m happy. What has caused this? Knowing I’m nowhere close to society’s norm requirements. Depression is just waiting for me to reach a breaking point, a point where I realize there is nothing I can do and the only way for me to be happy is within death. Death to me is like sleeping forever because why wake up from a prefect reality to live in a perfect nightmare? God, I am struggling so much, all I want is to be happy, why is it so hard for me? Why do I sit alone at home and cry over the thoughts of my future? I’ve become so impassive to the people around me even my own family, I just want your help, I don’t know who to go to, so God I am praying to you, to pray for me.
Preston
This is a depiction of your guardian angel losing to your demon of depression. The angel disintegrates into darkness becoming darkness itself. Unless you suffer from depression you will never truly understand what this feels like.. Constantly surrounded by darkness, that little bit of light you see just keeps getting smaller and farther away. This demon of depression attacks you, physically and mentally. Relentlessly attacking even the one trying to keep the light shining, your angel. You hear voices screaming, every weakness, every flaw, and transgression you have ever had since the day you were born. These voices never tire, screaming continually, never stopping to breathe. And this is only one demon, where we suffer from far more than just one. You bring in your everyday environmental struggles and this just causes your mind more suffering. The constant idea of suicide is the only thing that seems to make sense. Suicide seems to be the only solution to feel at ease. You are living in your own hell and remember this is all continual, every day, every second, minute, even in your dreams. Depression eats away your very being... I used watercolors, acrylic, and prsima colored pencils as my mediums. I wanted to express what is going inside my mind into an image. I developed this being of depression overtaking a human body. The human’s guardian angel is disintegrating and actually becoming a part of this depression’s darkness. I believe people will be able to relate personally to this piece since depression resides in everyone, some more than others.
SEXTING
This was a piece I made about “Sexting”, sex is considered such a taboo within certain people or by them. A lot of people sext or try to but it can be uncomfortable, I wanted to express the power it could provide when done correctly or with the right person. Communication is such a big part of sex. This communication between partners can open up doors, I feel a lot of men & even women don’t communicate well with each other. So neither knows what each other likes, they just expect and believe which creates in my opinion a “bad experience”. I encourage couples or sexual active people to take the time and get to know your partner, I mean really get to know their body. Watch how different your situations become when you use your voice. Don’t be afraid if the man or woman has too much pride or finds it offensive, then they don’t want to pleasure you and are probably closed minded. Communication will help and all the times I hear of people having bad sexual experiences is always the same issue but did you tell them what they could do differently, better, etc. Let people know and if they are willing to work with you, you’ll open up such wonderful experiences.
LOVE LONGING FOR DEATH
Love and Death are mutual concepts that are codependent on one another. Especially in the retrospect of complex human connection. To end one suffering that comes with each, they remain the solution to one another.
Here are depictions of two elemental forces of human existence, “love” & “death”. Death belonging to the male figure and Love to the woman figure. These two coexist in terms of “an erotic longing for death”. Using elements and symbols of each, bringing forth birds, the crow/raven represents “death” and the swan a representation of “love”. The figures are split open with a soul core burning red to signify the power of love that exists between the two.
These figures interact with each other like magnets, pulling away but also reach towards each other. One could say that love & death are both inevitable.
Love and Death are the primary obsessions of human society. Contained within a deeper level of existing as emotional beings, love and affection form the basis of our interactions with people. Death is an inevitable truth and end, which every life form must face. It preoccupies our conscious and subconscious thoughts. Life, emotions, and unavoidable death have been forever recurring themes of literature, poetry, music, art, and films throughout human history. An individual human being has to reconcile with having to love and die.
Human beings are both condemned to love and die…
PANTHEON 13
This is a story of Gods looking down on humans who created them. The story is based on a single entity, God. This lone entity was split apart by the beings that created it, humans. God and humans, although not the same species are connected physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. The minds of more creative, intelligent humans, who were seeking their purpose, struggled with natural human curiosity and their environment that surrounded them. Religion separates humans individually but brings them together in tradition, forming a union based on shared beliefs. Humans created religion as a common language among the souls of human beings. As an intelligent species, we fear the unknown and what dwells beyond its dark curtains, religion was a way of bringing the unknown to light. We sought to interpret natural phenomena and things we simply could not explain through religion.
As life progressed, humans began to develop their own idea of a God, splitting apart the one true entity into pieces. These pieces became different Gods, concepts and religions. My dark portrayal of such high and mighty entities represents how religion is both a means of separation and conglomeration. Its function is to bring people together to find a meaning/purpose in life and someone to follow. However, in reality, religion and its vast amount of delineations and sub-religions sullies the true meaning of religion by pushing people further apart due to a difference in beliefs. Now, these Gods are no longer a symbol of peace and higher power, they are weapons of mental torment and restriction of personal freedoms because they force categorization among people. Humankind has never been able to come together under a single God and unite the species to work together. It is in human nature to create separation between others based on general traits, like skin color, but religion is another factor. These beliefs are ideas, laws, and social rules that determine what is right and wrong among a society. Almost all religion is different yet based on the same themes. But the overall difference between each other’s gods creates conflicts. People hold that their beliefs are the only right way.
I want people to feel a connection between separation and indifference. Everyone has their own god, each individual believes their god is the real god. People are disconnected and often searching for a god they created in their own image. I chose 13 gods and idols. They include Lucifer, Mawu, Anubis, Amaterasu, Ganesh, Allah, Jesus Christ, Shiva, Isis, Odin, Huitzilopochtli, Moon Goddess, and Athena. The number thirteen is symbolically extremely strong. This can notably be explained by the mystical dimension that shrouds it. This number is the number par excellence that leaves no one indifferent.
Such separation shows how corrupt religion has become. We claim to follow these higher entities so we can reach enlightenment and be on equal ground with them, but instead, we abuse testaments, written and oral interpretations of religion to conform to our wants and selfish desires. Religion is no longer a holy concept, but rather a declaration of war.
EUPHORICAL
There are two stories within this piece, the physical and the spiritual. Two individuals embrace each other, partaking in oral relations, the man wanting to please his woman to the best of his abilities showing his affection. Their love resonates towards different gods and goddesses of lust, love, desire & fertility such as Himeros, Aphrodite, Pan, Ragada, Eros & Lue Yao. The man wants to please his woman to the best of his abilities, while the woman releases and gives herself over to her man wanting to experience a true climax, their energy fuels the different gods and goddess. These entities then respond to their cries, moans, and love; they both allow them to consume them. They enter from a portal within the sky. Surrounding the two individuals, capturing their different positions. Himeros shines his light across the plane. Aphrodite, Pan and Eros surround the two on the ground, reversing them into stone. Their souls are lifted into the sky, where Ragada and Lue Yao meets them. Lue Yao uses his red strings to tie them together. Their souls are trapped within an everlasting stasis of ecstasy. Their love sculpted into nature becoming symbols of passion and lust. I created this piece as a branch from my mind towards sexual preferences. There is just something about giving , than receiving, or feeling the power to stimulate my partner without the use of my unmentionables. Using my creativity I found different gods & goddess I could recreate and depict within a fantasy type space. Just how sex is almost like entering another space, I mean it is , I see myself in another light , allowing this light or is it darkness to consume me. In my opinion sex changes with two people when both, are comfortable with each another and completely open up to one another. Allowing themselves to sync, the experience changes.
Imagine being lost within the moment... time stops, as you’re being pulled into another world of pleasure. Breathing heavy you look at me, gripping onto the sheets as your body clenches upward, pushing your pussy into my mouth. You can feel yourself building up as my tongue slowly flicks across your clit in a rhythmic motion. You moan out louder as my tongue starts flicking faster and faster. My mouth sucks and tongue flicks your pussy at the same time. Grabbing my head, pressing me deeper and harder against you , I grab your arms, pulling away from you before you reach your point. Gasping and crying why , I can feel your legs shaking uncontrollably , throbbing, you were so ready. I couldn’t help but smile at you, while you looked so annoyed with me. I gradually kiss my way back up to you, brushing my lips across your inner thigh , while caressing your breast. Dragging my lips along your stomach to your neck. I reach your ear , asking you if you were ready to cum. You moan “yes”,I take my hands across your legs, my fingers drag across your skin gently until I reach the edge of your pussy. You can feel my fingers massage around your clit, circling back and forth. Your breathing gets heavy, your moans increase, you start trying to push my head down as I was slowly pressing my fingers through your lips , until I reach inside you. feeling you clench against me, you jerk back, letting out a deep gasp as you release yourself. You start moaning with your head tilted back and eyes closed. I have one finger inside you, slowly thrusting in and out. Still in your ear, my voice sends chills down your body as I tell you how wet you are.. your legs enclose around my hand, biting into my neck with your hands wrapped around me. I can feel your heart accelerating as I start speeding up the thrust of my fingers, rotating them inside you , I felt this was my chance to allow you to reach your point. I tell you to release yourself from me, I move up hovering over you, admiring your beauty. I bring my face down towards yours, breathing heavy against your neck. I kiss up to your ear, softly licking up and down, asking you in a deep low voice, "can I taste you".
CONTRADICTION (ROMANS 5:12)
What is going on inside you? In terms of what is going on inside your body, your mind, or the realm that we cannot see but could exist (if you believe in something like that). I created a self-portrait of my body depicting the outer and inner layers of my subconscious or soul. My body is fused with stone and intertwined with the limbs of trees. I created a halo taking the place of my head with stone, to represent the body as a solidified structure. These stones crumble, breaking away from the body which symbolizes that I, myself, am falling apart. The trees represent the rebirth of a new being and a constant transformation of myself as I live through an incessant battle against my mind and soul. Inside the pit of my mind is a shadow of myself, almost like my soul, chained down trying to escape. Just like how the angels who were looking over me escaped. These angels could be seen as people who are close to me, are no longer close to me, that I used to or have no feelings for. Taking place of my intestines are people warped into the limbs/vines of the tree, transforming into the dark parts of my body. My heart is also chained and restrained to depict the hardships I face in suppressing and keeping what’s left of, my emotions contained in my being.
Romans 5:12 is the centerpiece of the halo structure. This verse 12 “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—“, shows that sin has entered me, became me, and internal death will spread amongst me.
It is a depiction of possible alternate dimensions or worlds our bodies live in. For example the existence of heaven or hell. Our body is more than just cells, but a minor world fighting against an unseen sickness, which is individual spiritual death, overtaking our internal existence. With that being said, is it possible that our subconscious is a battle between two forces of our mind that relate to our ideas of what is good or evil, right or wrong, of being compassionate or emotionally numb? I struggle daily with what I should feel or if I should even feel at all...the idea of whether or not if anything I am doing, is even right. These thoughts eat at me and cause me to fall apart like crumbling stones.
In general, do I even want to feel anything, am I walking this repetitive cycle for any reason? Constantly going through the same situations, it’s tiring me out. I stopped developing feelings for people. Imagine not being able to feel anything, that pain is taken away from you...To be honest, nobody cares, there is no good or evil. Right and wrong were a creation. Maybe too much thinking isn’t good, maybe it’s evil, is it right or wrong? In the end it’s just me, all alone.
LITHIUM FLOWERS
I had a dream, I woke up and everything was destroyed, my bed rose to the sky. My reality crumbling. I watched from above as I lifted off into the clouds. The air went cold, the sky grew blacker above me, I looked up and watched a figure reach through from a door out of a dark abyss. It looked pained, gripping its face as it saw the destruction of my mind’s reality. It’s s eyes cried, the tears transformed into a sunflower, which spread across its face causing a chain reaction. I felt I was watching the birth of spring, of growth fast-forwarding as flowers erupted along in different areas. The colors raced along stream-like through the body. Running through its arms, stomach, and legs taking place of veins and nerves. Its wings unfolded, feathers dropping below me. I stared in awe as I watched the figure begin to fly out of the door releasing colors into my world, changing the clouds into a sea of exotic flowers. Different types danced around me, through me in the wind as I looked around, my hand playing through the waves of flowers. My reality was transforming.
Maybe when I dream I’m stepping through the very void between my light and dark, who knows whether or not I’m going to step into a nightmare. Imagine a recurring dream surrounded by nothing but blackness, empty space with no colors or light. Constantly reaching out to others, hearing their voices but seeing nothing. A constant repetition of cycles playing throughout my mind developing overthinking.
This then relates to my actual reality, slipping within in my mind, stuck in my own nightmares... I fall. Imagine just falling in complete darkness and the whole time you look up, you see a light, and you’re just falling endlessly, your stomach in knots, flipping. You feel nauseous, sick, scared, trembling, sweating, there is nothing to grab on to, nothing to hold or break your fall. Tears leak out of your eyes. You’re screaming to the point your throat hurts, coughing, nobody can hear you. The more you fling around, crying, gasping, shaking, desperate for this fall to end... you relax... finally accepting the darkness, becoming one with it... suicide.
I’m always trying to separate myself from my dreams which causes emptiness to grow as dreams progress. I force myself to stay up as long as possible to not only deepen my sleep but to avoid them also. In the dream world, if I step in the light, everything is perfect. In my world all I see is colors, they exist within my space, they work together, forming, being, creating, or blending. No one around me appreciates the colors I see, their meaning, my meanings for them. They try to limit my views on colors, telling me what is and what isn’t a true representation. Could these colors represent ideas, beliefs, or wants?
If I could change the way I see myself, maybe I could see my dreams becoming my reality.
INCLINATIONS
A mental disorder is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent or occur in a single episode, but the causes of mental disorders are often unclear. Now, I speak on the matter of disorders as a means of connection, and relation to myself. Not that I actually have a disorder (or do I?), but more to associate these disorders with my own psyche; how my mind causes its own disorders and distorts my reality. Within my life, I struggle to balance who I am or who I want to be. Constantly creating different personalities and obstructing the real me. To what... be accepted by those around me? Each image represents a disorder: Schizophrenia, Derealization, Borderline, or Split Personality disorder. I chose these because I felt like I associated with them through the root of their meanings. These representations were developed from my own idea of how I could depict their form. I created these pieces as a reflection of disorders within myself compared to my environment. These forms were derived from spectral elements as a reflection of one’s inner mind. Within my own mind, as an artist I would guess, I create these images of monsters’ figures that peek out from the dark corners of my mind that others otherwise wouldn’t be able to see. Which is one way I use art as a way to express myself? Imagine constantly changing who you are around people, becoming someone else, and realizing you are doing it with no ability to stop. Stuck in a loop to feel disconnected from my own reality. I always question myself, always feel I don’t belong, or feel as if I don’t have a stable version of myself because I want nothing to do with the real me. To isolate or hide, not only from people but from these demons of disorders that I have given form.
ZOMBIEBORUS
I’m naked in my piece all 198 cm of me because I am most comfortable that way.
I expect to lose followers after this but I have given up in Gainesville. It is failed connections and relationships one after the other. Whether it's my fault or theirs. I’m not doing so well in the states. But I am not against trying to create something or find something real here...
Why am I trying to give when no one gives me a try?
What I’m about to say about my piece possibly is very contradicting, just been typing out my thoughts.
I feel I keep meeting the same type of fake people here, over and over in different bodies. Being “fake” also represents zombies as an idea created because zombies are fake in terms of reality.
People continually think they know me or know anything about me and I don’t understand that, if you asked if I was your friend, I’d tell you no. My definition of a “friend” doesn’t define you.
Most of the time the problems are created by me? But I honestly don't feel I meet the right people. My personality is way too strong, my openness to everything bothers people. I get called gay because I’m comfortable with my masculinity. I have no filter, a dark sense of humor, I value everyone as an equal and see the beauty in all. When I open up fully, people tend to distant themselves. Because my true self is soooo out of this norm?
These zombies represent my problems since they are an depiction of death, a false reality created that is all our fears but zombies don't exist. The problems that do exist pull me in, I think about death all the time, or no longer existing in terms of how I wish the existence of fiction existed. I dream of alternate realities, worlds, where I feel I fit in or belong.
These zombies attack me and eat at me because they know I don't belong, they are an image of the judgemental, stereotypical, closeminded, selfish, boring, people I keep meeting. They eat away at me slowly causing me to feel less and less alive. Even though I am like them, a zombie in my own way that doesn't tear at others.
Death is a terrible thing for anyone. Everyone, it is the same for everyone. Death treats everyone equally. No such thing as a terrible death. this is the reason death is so horrifying. Everything about you, your skin color, your age, personality, wealth, or your beauty.. shit your followers, likes, views... these things only matter when you’re alive. This is probably why I think about death so much because being dead I wouldn’t have to feel the way I feel about anything because I’m dead. Slowly I’m dying, I mean, well all die eventually but I’m talking about my abilities to want to feel for people, I just feel so dead towards everything. I can't be happy alive? When death greets and brings happiness, its the gateway to eternal happiness? I sleep a lot because when I’m most happy, its when I’m sleeping... which is another form of death? My dreams are my everything... when I do have a good dream but my main goal is to create my dreams into reality which I work for, so I could not fall into death's hands. I think about suicide, other realities, powers, ideas all the time. I don't want people to ask if I’m okay, don't pretend, it's not funny, I have no expectations of you. Especially those who I thought were my friends but really it was a facade. The expectations of my self will be met, I’ve reach every goal I’ve ever made. I walk around fucking pretending everything is okay, but I’m messed up. Everyone always asks “Preston why do you work with horror?” And I’ll answer “what inequalities are in death?” It embraces all of us but I can't remember the last time I was happy, or felt comfortable with myself around another person. I hide, pretend, everything, being something I’m not but I want others around me to be happy... I do care about people who actually mean something to me.