Vanessa Melendrez

Period. 6
03/23/17

My self-portrait speaks about my most important identities at this

stage of my life through the use of symbols. My symbols are expressed

through the use of positive and negative space. The positive and

negative space builds up most of my portrait, focusing on the symbols

that represent my identity.

The most noticeable symbol in my portrait is the glass on the

half of my face, which falls under the element of design of texture. It

gives off the illusion of a sharp and broken surface. This symbol

represents my life at the moment, not complete. I still wonder what I

want to do in order to be successful and happy in the future. My

second symbol uses the element of design of shape, a question mark

on the other side of my face. The question represents my curiosity for

everything. Many careers interest me and I am a curious about how my

life will turn out to be. My third symbol, also falling under shape, is my

eyes. Both eyes purposely have cuts to represent earth. Meaning that I

am a big fan of traveling, I am eager to travel the world. That is

something that I am sure about, no matter what I end up choosing do

to with my career, I know that I want to travel the world. Most of my

symbols came from my background of being Hispanic and the eldest of

three. Being the example of my siblings adds a great amount of

pressure on my shoulders since I know they look up to me. Being the

 Vanessa Melendrez
Period. 6
03/23/17

eldest and the first child to graduate and go off to college, I am afraid

to mess up at a point and disappoint my parents.

I created this artwork to represent myself in a simple and artistic

way. I know that many students with my similar background will be

able to relate to some of my symbols. I would like my artwork to be

street art, that way anyone can see it. Street art would provide viewers

to look at my art piece at any time of the day. My artwork is mostly

targeted to young adults like myself who are still unsure of what they

want as a career. Young adults who are given a great amount of

responsibility for being the eldest. My art connects to surrealism

because for years people have used art and symbols to represent their

identity. Since my artwork is also purposed to be street art, it connects

to the history of street art. For example, Banksy was a famous street

artist that used his street art to talk send political and social

commentary messages. My artpiece is in the form of a portrait, which

connects to Vik Muniz. He worked on a project where portraits of many

different people were created by using trash.

Frida Kahlo and her unique ways to show different moments of

her life inspired me. Frida used many unique and odd symbols to

represent herself. For example, one of Fridas paintings, The Broken

Column, she has excessive nails on her body, representing pain. She

also has a broken column as a spine which is broken. Frida also places
 Vanessa Melendrez
Period. 6
03/23/17

herself on the earth with dark ravines in the background. The same

way that she represents herself through the use of symbols is the same

way that I used symbols in my portrait, to represent myself. I tried to

use odd symbols like the question mark, the broken glass and earth as

my eyes. Which connects to her broken column, the nails and the earth

in the background. My art piece was created to represent to represent

my identities in a unique way, with the hope that many students are

able to relate.