Reflection Of Inner Self

“Reflection of Inner Self” series on my work Ndiyaphila Ninjani Nina?

Conceptualization:

The act of selflessness is often one that we are taught, as women, should come naturally to us. We are taught to be givers and forgivers. We are taught to help the wounded before we help ourselves. In my work “Ndiyaphila, Ninjani Nina?” depicts an enchained woman with a frustrated expression on her face. The title of my work when translated from Xhosa to English means “ I’m doing well, thank you, how are you?” which is a contradiction to what you see in my work as the woman doesn’t look very inviting. She is physically and emotionally in a position where she would not be asking how someone else is doing. This speaks of the selflessness women are constantly

However, after looking at Hutchison’s “The Decision”, I realised that my work was missing a personal link. The “The Decision” work made me think of my own emotional turmoil and confusion. I saw that my work was not only about my tradition but about my identity as a whole. My identity being my past experiences, the things that have hurt me and the things that I hide in my subconscious and do not want to speak about but play a huge role in my life today. In realising this I added a few more things into my work such as symbols and items that make up who I am. This included sage as a spiritual link, a modern European corset to speak of the Western world that I have been brought up in but feel as though I am being forced into as well as a chain of traditional smoking pipes which speak of the ties I have to my tradition both because of my age an and my

One way being in a thick black frame that has a veil over it and will be placed high up on a wall. This is to speak of mourning and death. The death of one’s self when lost in other people and the feeling of no longer feeling alive because of being constantly pressured by your own emotions that need to come out but cannot. The second presentation idea is to have a rectangular box surrounding it’s frame, looking like a tunnel of some sort. I want my viewer to look into the tunnel and into my subject’s world. To feel a sense to either help her or to walk away from her because she is in this dark [place and looks rather uninviting. This speaks of what I often go through with my family as they at times want to help me and make me feel better but struggle to because I put up this aggressive wall against them which just ends up pushing them away from me. This hurts me but is a self-inflicted pain as I am pushing them away from me by my actions because I am hurt.

View of Work:

The creation of my work was to bring about social awareness around traditional patriarchy, one’s identity and mental state. I bring out these different things in my work through subject matter, symbolism, colour as well as my expressive style. For my viewer the most evident theme will be the mental and emotional state as my subject matter’s facial expression shows clear feelings of unhappiness and frustration.