“When are you gonna go back to making good drawings?” (2022) is the culminating piece of my quarantine series, “Self Exploration.” It is an ultimate return to form (like Sensibility before it) in that I have been on a journey in expanding my horizons in medium that has been practically abandoned by this piece, yet its message and intentional style speaks to the reason for this body of work in the first place.
The title of this piece expresses how it fits in with and references the body of work it completes. “Self Exploration” has been about introspection about how the self is altered by how it is perceived. This detached feeling while also being deeply personal has driven the self portraits I have created through the pandemic, as examination was so pivotal to myself and others in times in which we could not rely on peers in the ways we were used to. The self was driven from its usual context, and as a result the way we perceived ourselves changed in ways that will be hard to forget once we return to our old circumstances.
The question the title begs, “When are you gonna go back to making good drawings?” calls to mind its own important questions: who is asking, and does their question hold weight? The turn from the sole audience of my work being myself to many people weighing in within an online space has truly amplified the overall message of “Self Exploration”. The public and private melt together quickly and often until the sense of self is reduced to how you are perceived beyond yourself. The challenge of this view is that one cannot change how they are perceived by others, and so for many this becomes a distressing way to view the self.
This piece also speaks to the way in which we bend once we let other’s perception dictate our sense of self. Making choices to do everything “right”– a realistic graphite portrait in a matted frame– in the efforts to meet the standards and expectations of others. However, intentional slips from ideals such as not finishing the piece below the collarbone speak to how when we bend ourselves, the lack of authenticity is always there, no matter how subtly.
I had the privilege of showing this piece at Celestial Arts & Antiques’s show, “Venus Awakening,” which I posted about here. As I continue to show work, I’ll be making updates on this site as well as on my Instagram. Thanks for all the love!
Rebecca Lugo 