Professional Practices Portfolio

Author/Artist Name

Krizianna GrovesFollow

Files

Academic Level at Time of Creation

Senior

Date of Creation

Fall 12-10-2024

Artist Statement

My artwork consists of large self portraiture drawings and paintings. Exploring the amount of distortion I can create with my face and hands. The distortion of my body stems from the sexual assault I’ve experienced in my life. How their hands on me made me feel disconnected from my body and self. Living with that trauma that will continue to follow me, caused myself to not see me correctly or even feel like me. Maybe if I looked different it wouldn’t have happened. I also create work that has my partner as the subject instead of myself. He’s drawn to be sort of a safe place for me since he’s the only one that hasn’t hurt me and instead is helping me grow. I feel as if he’s the only one I can draw in the closeness of distortion that I take on because he also bears my pain with me. He’s the first partner I’ve ever wanted to draw, I feel as if that makes him permanent in my life.

I wasn’t listened to when I said no, stop, or don’t touch me in the past. I want to regain that power back, where I can give permission. I want people to touch my work. When people see a painting or a charcoal drawing they assume you can’t touch it because it will change the artwork. I want people to interact with my work even though it will change the outcome, it’s taking back what was taken from me, my word, my permission.

Color used to not play such a big part in my work. It was a scary experience first trying out color and how it would react with the charcoal. But now that I’ve gotten to know color, it’s everywhere on my drawings. It’s now playing a big part in my work with how my self portraits are focused on the warm tones. Red, orange and yellow are really intimidating colors for me because they are bright and out there, but that’s what I want people to be attracted to with my work, you have to look at the bright colors to focus on what’s going on in the drawings. The works with my partner being the figure are using cool tones where they aren’t as attention grabbing, which it’s to show that I view him as safety and comfort, where I feel most at peace.

Artists that I’ve grown my inspiration from are artists like Jenny Saville, Marlene Dumas, Junji Ito, Maria Lassnig, and Chloe Piene. All of these artists have helped me figure out my own style when it comes to creating how I see myself and how I create the pain and distortion of my body.

Advisor/Mentor

T Michael Martin

Description

Charcoal and Chalk Pastel on Paper, 68" x 48".

Charcoal and Chalk Pastel on Paper, 48" x 58".

Photo Credit

Krizianna Groves

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Recommended Citation

Groves, Krizianna, "Professional Practices Portfolio" (2024). Professional Practices (ART 399). 164.
https://digitalcommons.murraystate.edu/art399/164