Can
you explain the symbolism of this piece?
Well, it is truly a " neck-up self-portrait" because I had problems and personal challenges “up to the neck.” I am living a good life in general, although I had my rough times too like everybody I guess. It is the time when you see who sticks with you and who doesn’t, what is important and what isn’t. It is the point where you know something is about to change. The time where everything in and around you boils down to the essentials. I drew it years ago so now I can look at it from the distance, outside this situation I was stuck in.
This pencil drawing is a stage, I am the central character, revealing my inner life through a fictitious jungle or forest surrounding me. Maybe it says I am finally looking through this wall of confusion.
The smoke out of my nose shows that something is still working in and coming out of me, not dead yet.
Well, it is truly a " neck-up self-portrait" because I had problems and personal challenges “up to the neck.” I am living a good life in general, although I had my rough times too like everybody I guess. It is the time when you see who sticks with you and who doesn’t, what is important and what isn’t. It is the point where you know something is about to change. The time where everything in and around you boils down to the essentials. I drew it years ago so now I can look at it from the distance, outside this situation I was stuck in.
This pencil drawing is a stage, I am the central character, revealing my inner life through a fictitious jungle or forest surrounding me. Maybe it says I am finally looking through this wall of confusion.
The smoke out of my nose shows that something is still working in and coming out of me, not dead yet.
Keep in mind I drew all of this without really having a plan, without researching a concept and all the symbolism going with the final result. I just began and pretty soon it began to make sense.
Since ancient times the near impenetrable forest is the realm of the psyche. A place of unknown perils and darkness, a place traditionally associated with the unconsciousness.
Dante said at the beginning of The Divine Comedy “In the middle of the journey of our life I found myself in a dark wood where the straight way was lost”. (I have this nice Divine Comedy edition with these mind blowing woodcut illustrations by Gustave Dore) You can get lost easily in your own forest, if you know what I mean. The forest blurs your distinctions between animate and inanimate, darkness and light, finite and infinite, body and soul, sight and sound.