Day 13 – Recreate a famous work of art in your own way.
I was really excited by this challenge and raced through ideas for Van Gogh’s Starry Night and the Birth of Venus. Eventually, I decided on The Son of Man by Rene Magritte, often referred to “Man in the Bowler Hat.”
I could call my version “Daughter of Woman,” but I think I’ll go with “Hidden Behind Myself” inspired by the quote from Magritte below.
At least it hides the face partly well, so you have the apparent face, the apple, hiding the visible but hidden, the face of the person. It’s something that happens constantly. Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see. There is an interest in that which is hidden and which the visible does not show us. This interest can take the form of a quite intense feeling, a sort of conflict, one might say, between the visible that is hidden and the visible that is present.
This quote is what helped me finally decide to use this piece for inspiration. And, it got me pondering not necessarily about how everything is hidden behind something else and that we’re constantly seeking, but how true it is that we, especially artists, struggle between reveling who we are through our art and keeping our creations to ourselves for fear of exposure to the public eye.
Whenever someone confides in me their fear of putting their art out in the world, be it words or paint or photos, I always tell them that for every creative thing there is a person out there who will connect with it in some way. All too often, I find that I need to follow my own advice and bravely put my work out there whether I’m completely happy with it or not.
CreativeSprint has been the most creatively demanding exercise and the most emotionally supportive venue for exposing my art to the world.
Denise M. Sessous: writer, artist & dreamer 