Shredded Narcissism (version 2)

This image is derived from The Sutured Chimeroplasty. I wanted to use a background I’d created using shredded paper from a paper shredder, a piece of paper with tire tracks on it I found out in the street, and some torn up magazine pictures, along with my newly created Microchimerism. So I scanned the collage of pieces of paper pasted together in order to use it as a background. Then I selected hollowed out portions of The Sutured Chimeroplasty and placed this template as a layer on top of the collage.

This process allowed for the collage to be seen through the spaces of where the hollowed out mosaic pieces were, hence enabling a more complex and layered appearance to the new image. There is a lot more to the image that I created these new effects in, but I found one particular area of that image interesting. So I selected it and made it into an artwork unto itself for which the results of you see here.

I titled this piece Shredded Narcissism after some thought. The shreds of paper that can be seen here are actually remains of credit card ponzi schemes that financial institutions send out to everyone as junk mail as desperate attempts to land people into more debt. I thought it would be a great idea to, not throw away all of the paper shreds, but turn them into some sort of artwork or other. After all, the shreds have words and numbers printed on them. Luckily, the words, advertisements, and sentences are shredded enough so that my viewers don’t have to see another advertisement in the time they give to looking at this work.

At first, I thought the story of this picture could detail shredding a bankster’s lies to people, which can still be a thread to explore in reference to this depiction. I decided to use the word narcissism for this image instead because it holds more meaning to me. Artists are basically narcissistic. I know, because I’m an artist. I create art work for people. I don’t create it out in a vacuum in space where there’s no one around.

The narcissism I’m addressing in this image, however, is to communicate the fact that most artists don’t “make it,” and either a) have to endure continual marginalization, rejection, poverty, failure, and so forth, or b) get lucky and become wealthy and famous by their own creative means. Both cases require abundant amounts of narcissism, as the realities of the world really have no care nor interest in the inspirations that an artist has. I suppose this image communicates that the light within shines on regardless of recognition or none.