Nicole Lopez
I'm Nicole Lopez, currently a Senior at Ronald Reagan High School. Born in Florida and later moving to Milwaukee, Wisconsin has given me multiple perspectives on cultures and lifestyles. I'm planning on creating artwork with a theme based on identities and relationships. This way I may creatively share my perspective.
The vision for my body of work is to present a theme of identities and relationships. I’ve always been interested in the interconnectivity of people and emotions. I present the theme in a variety of ways through my work. I explore cause and effect relationships between one’s self and society through “cut throat” and “untitled 1”. This adds to my theme since it shows the change one can make to a large aspect of their lives. I also explore self to self relationships, as can be observed in “Self Portrait”, and society to society, as can be observed in the “culture through corona” series. While these relationships are more tangible than the self to society, it becomes complex in respect to the identity part of the pieces. My main reason for choosing to focus on Identities and Relationships for my pieces is due to the intimacy required to make an art piece. When I create art, I focus on its perception and how it affects other people. This can be highly observed in the masks. The first three masks in the series represent my comrades cultures. With the pandemic, individuality is limited to health restrictions. While normally they could express themselves with clothing, winter hinders that with fluffy coats. This prompted me to help demonstrate themselves in the most obvious way possible, by presenting their culture on their faces. This awards them their individuality while staying within the CDC guidelines. In my piece “Self-portrait” I focus more on the identities portion of my theme. Inspired by Chuck Close's grid method and Madame X by Sargent, “Self Portrait” explores Identities and relationships concerning my personal view of myself. I recreate the Madame X scandal and mimic it according to my experience of reproachfulness when I wearing shorts. This piece explores part of my personal identity and how it relates to popular culture. In my piece for MIAD, I explore both aspects of my theme in depth. Inspired by my nephew and peers, I wanted to create jewelry that could also function as a stimulus tool to help them focus, simultaneously avoiding bullying of the attached stigmas. I created stim jewelry that allows the user to experience the capabilities similar to the stimuli in an incognito fashion, all the way down to the clasps. This shows how one’s identity, mostly focusing on how ADHD and autism become part of one’s identity, impacts their relationship with those around them. A strategy I used to develop a relationship between my pieces and the viewer was by creating a storyboard. The storyboard helped focus on how empathy and user’s needs could be incorporated into the artwork so that it may be more impactful. This way I aptly applied my theme to the work, while still being considerate of the audience. This allowed for further connectivity with the pieces and enforces my theme by creating pieces that people identify with. The way I arranged the work furthers my theme of identities and relationships because it highlights the interconnectivity of the pieces. The masks are together because it demonstrates the multicultural portion of them. The Storyboard and my self-portrait are together since those are the two pieces I have the most personal connection with. The placing of each of my pieces revolves around the theme of identities and relationships, hence making it a piece in itself. I intend for my audience to connect with the artwork on a personal level. The self-portrait appeals to people considered oddities to the public. The masks are for a more general connection on a broad scale. Either way, the pieces were made to develop affinities with the viewers. I also want the viewer to be able to share their experience with the artwork with others. Since my theme revolves around interconnectivity, viewers sharing their experiences would be a way for them to add to the exhibition. Memories are works of art themselves, and sharing their memory of the projects with others expands it. |