POST 8 - ART MOVEMENT - DEE DIAZ

Surrealism is the art movement that I say that I would feel most drawn to out of all existing movements. The art movement’s focus was on tapping into the unconscious, dreams, and deep desires. The artists of this time felt that the imagination grew beyond their conscious minds and expanded into their unconscious and dreams. They created pieces they felt replicated these feelings and wants that were withheld and never previously shared.

The idea of freedom of the mind’s deepest wants and needs speaks to me in a more than meaningful way. As my work is deeply personal to me and is often a reflection of how I think, feel, and see in ways that I cannot always directly articulate. However, through these dreamlike images, I can create the subtext of things that I struggle with or am drawn towards.

From the series “Untitled”, Cecilia Porras, 1958

I chose this piece by Cecilia Porras because I feel that there is a simplicity of form but a variety of depth in the meanings of the image. Porras choosing to leave the piece untitled leaves it further up to the viewer because she is not imposing her meaning onto the image. For me I feel a subtext of loneliness and death because of the separation of the identity of the subject from the viewer. They are lost in this cloth and in a way seem to be also freed from it. Similarly in the image that I chose to compare it to from my own work, it also conveys a sense of lostness and symbolic of the relationship of death. The subject is looking away from the guiding light and that to me is symbolic of a dreamlike state before moving towards death. The subject’s body language is calm and accepting and yet defiant and not ready to move past.

Untitled, November 2024