Browsing by Author "Saxena, Shiven"

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    Fragmented Self
    Saxena, Shiven (Virginia Tech, 2023-07-09)
    As an artist, my work reflects my own life experiences, allowing me to reinterpret and process difficult events in a new light. Creating art is a therapeutic process for me, enabling me to explore and understand my past and my own Self. In line with James Baldwin's views, I believe that the duty of an artist is to provide their audience with an opportunity to rediscover themselves; to help them explore their inner selves. In my experience, to achieve that goal, the first and most important hurdle the artist needs to cross is exploring themselves. In the process of answering questions about their own selves, they can touch many other souls. In Fragmented Self, I employ composited 3D animations of my own body parts juxtaposed over still and moving images. Each body part and piece in Fragmented Self is a metaphorical representation of a specific experience I have lived through. The resulting pieces are meditative, surreal, and abstracted spaces that speak to the complexities of life experiences. I believe each body holds messages from the past, and in Fragmented Self, I disembody and fragment my own body to study and explore my own Self. Drawing inspiration from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass in which he proclaims, "I contain multitudes", I see my Self as a composite of various selves shaped by different life experiences coming together to form one Self. I believe that I am a constantly evolving individual, influencing my everyday encounters and choices. As in the Japanese tradition of Kintsugi, in Fragmented Self, I trace the gold lined cracks that unite my multitudinous selves into one in hopes of answering the question "What makes me who I am today?"