Chasing Home Series: #4

Number 4 in the series, and I think, most successful one of all of them. The theme for this one was "mask" and although I didn't know the theme when I started this one, I had a very firm idea in my head of what I wanted to do with the painting.

This painting was inspired by the feeling of being separate from your community, whether physically, emotionally, culturally, whatever. The mask, even though the idea came later, fit well into the concept, my thinking was: you can join the community if you wear the mask, hide your true self.

The interesting thing was that in discussion with some other artists, many of them thought of it in the reverse: when you leave the community you put on the mask, to walk out among the rest of the world, imlying that you are your true self when you are in your community (and by community I mean the people that surround you - your family, friends, coworkers, neighbors, etc). This is a much more comforting interpretation than the one I came up with.

Just goes to show that what you see in art can reveal as much if not more about yourself than what the artist ever intended.