Daniela Stahle
room to breathe, 2021
Acrylic paint on canvas
30 x 40 inches
The act of dressing up has always been one of my favorite creative outlets; it’s an extremely indulgent act—one of the closest forms of creative expression to pure play and freedom. I lock my door and the walls of my room begin to dissolve as silhouettes, fabrics, and emotions begin to appear. Dressing up embodies a unique intersection of creativity, allowing me to negate expectations and materialize the abstract world in my head. Music, drawing, dance, color: each a distinct consideration. In this space, I can create my environment; I have the authority and freedom to choose what enters and remains. For me, the act of dressing up provides a strong sense of safety as I transcend the physical and traverse the metaphysical.
I chose to incorporate both sculpting and painting in this piece. I began sculpting; the hat and shoes (photographed below) were constructed from armature wire, plaster wrap, and sculpey. The shoes and hat, again, are intended to display tones of absurdity and play. In addition, I created an outfit out of an assortment of fabrics, beads, and various craft items. I embellished my legs with googly eyes, and layered undergarments on top of my tights and sheer shirt. As an homage to and representation of absurdity, disorder, and creativity, my ensemble attempts to create space for imperfection. A space in which I could immerse myself in childlike play and dispose of rationality or practicality that typically haunt day-to-day life. My ploy to embrace absurdity is an attempt to engross myself in feeling rather than thought. The final product (the painting) documents yet another attempt to reach beyond my physical space and expand my expression. My painting is a re-presentation, an interpretation of a representation of me. Each representation of me: my real self, myself in costume, and myself in the painting, are varied, which ultimately creates room for me to change and adapt. My identity and perception of myself is constantly changing and growing. I’m not one solidified representation, rather I make up an accumulation of ideas, traits, emotions, and experiences.
For much of my life, due to circumstances I couldn’t control, I’ve felt forced to live in enclosed spaces, which left me latching onto fear as a mode of protection. I was terrified to express myself freely and honestly for much of my adolescence. To culminate my last 12 years at this school and first big chapter of my life, I wanted to create a piece that embodied my journey of self-discovery and attempt to create space. This project, in its creation, is my attempt to hold space for myself—to open myself up to creativity and freedom. In addition, it was an attempt to find comfort in the ever changing facets of my identity.
I was particularly inspired by Cindy Sherman’s and Gillian Wearing’s self portraiture work. In Sherman’s photography, she plays with notions of identity, dressing herself up and portraying a character, a story. I felt compelled to incorporate the honesty and candidness of her work into my own. Sherman also often talks about her process of playing a character; especially in her later pieces, she steps into a character and tries to immerse herself in their mindset, so I sought to do something similar. During the process of taking photos of myself, I tried to step into the mind of someone who had space. For my piece, I stepped into a character, who wears her dreams like it’s her clothing. Gillian Wearing, another photographer, created a series of self portraits wearing a prosthetic mask. Her usage of masks suppresses the physical self in order to emphasize her emotional and psychological disposition. I liked the idea of finding vulnerability in something distinctly invulnerable. Vulnerability has so many different forms and doesn’t always manifest itself in something “stripped down” or “raw.” I chose to use my costume as my mask in order to accentuate my emotional and psychological disposition. Rather than masking, I expanded on my physical expression, absurdist and extravagant, in order to make more room for my heart to breathe.
Click images to enlarge.
