Amnesia Mask

"Amnesia Mask" (November 2012)
14" x 14" x 4" Mixed Media Assemblage on Textured Gallery Wrap Canvas

This is the third and final mask assignment for my Illustrative Mask-Making class.  The assignment was to abstract the elements of the face, and take inspiration from a line from a song and a place.  The song I chose was "The Dead Flag Blues" by Godspeed You Black Emperor.  The place I was recreating was Roslindale.  I have done a number of projects relating to the concept of living in one place as a child, only to move away and return years later and see the location through a fresh set of eyes.  I'm not going to go on about how much my hometown has changed, but I wanted to include the feeling of amnesia, and lack of familiarity with a once familiar location.  I focused on the line: "The Sun has fallen down, and the billboards are all leering, and the flags are all dead at the top of their poles" and tried to build a multi-layered billboard.  Working with mixed media collage on a 3D surface was new to me, and something I plan on exploring even further.  This class was so much fun, and really saved my interest in mixed media work.  I saw a huge division in my body of work (half mixed media collage, and half traditional illustration) and I kind of lost faith in my collage/mixed media skills for a while. Taking this class gave me a new way to incorporate it into my more "illustrative" work.