Young Writers Society

planning - acrylic on paper


underpainting (I think this step looks super cool so I'm including it hehe)


half way done - the crows look SICK here

I wrote some artist statements for these when I made them, so if the language is a bit stiff/formal compared to how I usually write on this site - that's why xD

The Scarecrow [Intrusive Thoughts]
Intrusive thoughts are thoughts that pop into your head unprompted and unwanted. They can cover a wide variety of topics, but the one thing they have in common is their extremity. A person might be driving, for instance, and suddenly their brain tells them to swerve into the other lane. They don’t want to do this, and they might even know they would never actually act on that thought, but the thought is very persistent nonetheless. This can make driving a lot scarier, especially when your brain keeps repeating it over and over: swerve. swerve. swerve. It's easy to internalize that somewhere in your subconscious, you must actually want to do this and you're a horrible person who cannot be trusted with a car. Even worse, the more you try to fight an intrusive thought, or out-logic it, or disprove it, the stickier it becomes. This can become a horrible feedback loop in which you become fixated on these thoughts, believing if you try hard enough you can make them go away. The reason intrusive thoughts are so tenacious, though, is because they actually represent the exact opposite of what you believe. Your brain buys into the shock factor of the thought because it directly contradicts your moral code.

I wanted this painting to convey the manner in which intrusive thoughts “eat away” at an individual. The crows are attacking the scarecrow as a group, tearing out the scarecrow’s stuffing and consuming it. This shows how the more pervasive the thoughts become, the more the individual begins to lose sight of their actual beliefs, becoming convinced that they are their thoughts. The scarecrow is even lifting some of its stuffing towards the crows, reflecting how intrusive thoughts can become a vicious cycle and how actively trying to make an intrusive thought go away just gives it more ammunition. There is also some irony in the fact that the scarecrow is being eaten by the very thing it is supposed to be scaring away; the crows are functionally the moral opposite of the scarecrow, just like intrusive thoughts directly contradict a person’s morals.

[Okay back to me being less formal xD] In terms of the perspective, lighting, and colour scheme - I really just wanted to make the scene feel very intense, dramatic, and sort of dooming. And then my idea with the crows was to have them descending in an almost tornado or whirlpool-like formation to show how inescapable intrusive thoughts feel. I'm not gonna lie, the colour scheme was a pain in the butt - because of how specific and random the main burgundy-esque colour is, it really doesn't match with much else, apart from other similar shades and tints. So I accidentally forced the colour scheme into being monochromatic <.< but hey, I don't hate it!

The Colourful Shattered Mirror [Internal Identity]
This is one of my favourites in terms of personal meaning! Back to professional-sounding Seirre -

We often place a lot of emphasis on the external aspects of one's identity: external connections, external relationships, external validation, external success, you name it. It can be easy to lose sight of who you actually are - just you, without anyone else in the equation.

In my painting, the colourful and fractured reflection of a person in the mirror represents the version of themself they have learned from other people. The bizarre and unrealistic colours show that this reflection is not natural; it is a mask that has been built up over time, by roles, expectations, stereotypes, and preconceived notions that other people have projected onto them. These colours make the person's image very fun and cheery and easy to look at; in other words, palatable for everybody else.

My dream as I grow older is to learn how to break past the version of myself I've created for other people and get to the "real me" (as cliche as that sounds). In my artwork, the reflection is breaking out from behind the confines of the mirror. The reflected hand that is coming out of the mirror holds the hand of the original person. The subject of this painting has started to connect to themself.