Kristyn Kazanjian's Self-Portrait

 When I first received the assignment task, I knew right away that I wanted to focus on an important aspect of my life. I chose to focus on my two sisters and decided to not include myself in the piece. Each picture chosen represents a different memory from the past. As you can see, none of the pictures are posed; they are all candid. I know this piece may come off as busy, but I did that for a reason. There is never a dull moment in my life; something is always happening. Overall,  these pictures of my sisters to a great job in portraying my life and who I am.

Billie Heitzman- Self Portrait

The idea behind this piece were the memories that have made me who I am.  Looking back upon them now, the memories are often unclear, yet they still have significance to me.  Another person who views this picture may be able to assess what is being portrayed but would not understand the the meaning behind it, just as I cannot clearly explain how these events have impacted the person I've become.

Self Portrait- Alex Yen

My self portrait expresses how I try to remember everything around me. I used small strips of color to denote my memories, and they increase and become more chaotic as the levels of "memories" grow. In the end, they eventually spill out of the paper itself because there are too many to remember.

Lisa Inouye

This whimsical, imaginative tree is symbolic of my thought process where the branches which hold my thoughts represent growth and my unlimited possibilities.  The branches extend towards the sky which is to where one looks when dreaming thus representing my unconscious.  The roots of a tree are rooted in reality, or my conscious.  My mind and my heart lie between the two. This was taken from my psychology influence. 

My self portrait represents my Swiss heritage through the earring.  I chose to make it completely black and white except for the earring to provide contrast and significance.  I removed the word "portrait" to give the design less of a framed feel.  Leaving the word "self" implies that it is not merely a picture of an ear but a depiction of an identity.

Ali Sandler- Self Portrait

I decided to create this picture as my self portrait as a way to visually express a fear of mine. I have Astrophobia, which is the fear of outerspace. As a film major, this phobia has held me back because I am unable to watch great films such as Star Wars or Doctor Strangelove. Anything that has to do with the universe or the world ending I can not see. I decided to stripe the picture with Caution tape because Caution tape is typically used to prevent people from entering a dangerous area.

Self Portrait--Mai Kang

I created my self portrait with the inspiration of my favorite quote by Buddha. I used photoshop to crop the image of a maze inside a side-profile of my face.

Carmen

sarah's self-portrait

Well, as I mentioned in class, there was supposed to be another half to this piece in baby blue, which I finished and actually like better than the pink one. The detail is better (I used an Xacto knife instead of regular scissors), the canvas isn't covered in rubber cement residue, and I cut out some of the unnecessary shapes that the cutout filter creates (all my extra chins).

I'll post it as soon as my scanner starts working again, but for now, here's the one from class:

and the original photo (oh to be 16 again!):UPDATE:

Here's the blue one.

Self Portrait- Wendy Hsieh

This picture is taken by my sister and I am the one in the middle of the picture who wear straight shirt. This is the country I come from " Taiwan". And, I am doing one of my favorite activity-riding a bicycle.

Sea of Emotions--Rachel King Self Portrait

Myra Yepez | self portrait

Instead of a traditional portrait, I wanted to convey a part of myself that while extremely public, at the same time is very private- the mouth. While straight, white teeth are conventionally thought to be more beautiful, I wanted to inject my own imperfect set with some strange sense of beauty.

Self Portrait

This goofy portrait represents my life and personality, which have been extremely influenced by my family. Sushi is not only my favorite food, but symbolizes my relationship with my family as a single roll but we are all defined as individual pieces.

kristie kam self portrait

Katy Capper's Self Portrait

For my portrait I wanted to show how I want to do so many different things and how I hope to have a dozen different careers in my life. The best way I could think to do this visually was to show the different clothes one would wear .

Alice in Wonderland (Chelsea Dunlap's Self Portrait)

are you half? (Nicole Jaffe's Self Portrait)

When I meet people for the first time they often ask me, "Are you half?" I never really know how to answer this question because I know what they are trying ask, but I always dislike the way they say it. The question seems so confrontational and so accusatory. Sometimes it makes me feel alienated, as if I'm not a whole person but just a half. The idea behind this piece is that I am of mixed nationalities, but I am not in fact "half" but rather whole. I wanted to see what it would look life if I put my two ethnicities on the same face.

My Adrenochrome Dream (Ari Oh's Self Portrait)

http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u31/Maverick_PMS/myadrenochromedream.jpg

This is the link to the large version of my self-portrait.

Adrenochrome is an antihemorrhagic agent (reduces capillary bleeding).


Adrenochrome Dreams by Otep Shamaya
I had this dream where I woke up to a grand commotion.
And I just jumped from the blankets
And whipped the door from its lock,
and rushed blindly into the blackness of the hallway.
But there, on all sides, lying next to each other
were rows and rows of executioners.

Some were shirtless and bulbous
throbbing with anticipation.
Sweat delicately sneaking through their body hair
All were hooded
Some like seventeenth century guillotine henchmen
others had crudely made hoods
like scarecrows or ripped ski masks
With slobber from their clenching jaws
And some had burlap masks that looked like they were made of human skin.

Each one held a weapon.
Large mallets
crudely fashioned axes
and large clubs
pipes

But I wasn't compelled to retreat.

No.

I was forced to move between them.
Past their swinging weapons
The clubs
the bats
the slicing tools
The shovels
the large and small axes
Boards with nails, staples and razorblades embedded in them
taking the beating,
falling down,
getting up,
again and again and again and again
driven to make it out...

At any cost.


And next,
I stumbled into this strange, marshy world
Where I was oddly drowning in squirrels and other large, starving rodents.
From above, out on the treetops,
Several dolls fell from the branches
And they were hanging
With nooses made of human hair
They started biting and sucking and trying to feed from me
Trying to enter my belly and some pushed large needles into my veins and
As I looked back, some had nails through their hands, torsos and throats.

I was frozen.
Dead eyes
Carbonized
As I kicked them away
I could see all around me
piles and piles of dead sea life.
Large fish, smelly crustaceans, covered all in death shrouds

And their soulless empty bodies whispered
a secret language I couldn't decipher but somehow understood.

And their cries were
"Feed me... feed me..."

They wanted me to devour those around them
Chew them up into pieces
and smear them inside their mouths.
And as I turned around
I could see the shape of a woman

Perfect
Perfectly erotic
Squatting over a pile of these dead things
And as I ran to her and said "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!"

And she had no face
And she turned to glass
And suddenly cracked
And then exploded into 1000 pieces at my feet.

And just as I took a quick breath,
this world was shoved and decimated
By an intruding tidal wave
Of microorganisms, neutrinos, exploding atoms, and binding molecules

I was suddenly in the moon then
Frightened, aching, and alone
And that's what I remember most

The ache.

I can't escape
The ache.


Click here to listen to Otep read the poem herself. I highly recommend this, if you're interested. It starts off with a couple minutes of silence.

First Class - Compositions from a set of objects

In-Class Assignment: Pair up with a class mate. Go outside and collect 10–20 objects that represent a set. The size of each object should small enough to fit into your hand. Bring back your set of objects and assemble them into a two-dimensional composition.

Compositions:

Welcome

Welcome to the blog for the course Design Fundamentals (Section 33261), taught at the USC Roski School of Arts in the spring 2009 by Prof. Roman Jaster. This blog enables students to document their work, share it with their classmates and comment on each other’s work.