Do you see what I see?
Fourth-year drawing student Matthew Malone’s solo exhibition Reflect runs from October 5 to October 16 and invites that question from its audience.
Reminiscent of Dove’s viral video, Real Beauty Sketches (scroll down for the inspiring video) that sits at over 66 million views on YouTube, Malone has created a series of portraits in soft pastel and places self-portraits from the models made with ink on top. Deriving from the same image, Malone takes the two perspectives in two different forms and synthesizes them into one whole.
The self-portraits captured the subjects’ personas, with harsh black lines not only tracing their face but also capturing every wrinkle, hair, and self-perceived flaw. Malone’s portraits in comparison were jarring, juxtaposing the black outlines with deft pastel and subtle tones. The subjects’ self-portraits were caricatures, with small noses and large, disproportionate eyes. Malone noted the jarring dichotomy between ideas of self-perception and public identity through the gaze of others.
I was curious to see how people reacted to their own work and how they see themselves.[su_youtube_advanced url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpaOjMXyJGk”]
“That’s basically what I set out to do. How close I can get the resemblance, that’s always my goal, but I was also curious if and how other people can achieve the same,” says Malone.
Like the title of the exhibition, Malone leaves it to the audience to reflect between the superimposed lines of what we think we look like versus how the rest of the world perceives us. Often, personal opinions, memories, and experiences shape our understanding of who we are, including our physical appearance. Subconsciously or consciously, our outward looks are a reflection of our inward personality.
The solo exhibition is hosted at the Special Projects Gallery in the Joan and Martin Goldfarb Centre for Fine Arts. Admission is free.
Nirris Nagendrarajah, Contributor
Carlos Meneses, Contributor
Featured image courtesy of Victoria Goldberg
