Inconspicuous Amidst Brilliance
Daniel M.
Clay, acrylic paint, cardboard, paper, string, wood.
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“Inconspicuous Amidst Brilliance" is an art piece that depicts three students flourishing effortlessly while one grapples with the challenges of simply keeping pace. While making this piece, our goal was not to depict three excellent students and one failing to excel with them, but to illustrate how difficult it seems to the struggling student. When considering our initial concept, we wanted to express each student’s individualistic and separate “color”. Upon further consideration however, we came to the understanding that most, if not all students struggle, facing high hurdles when achieving academic excellence, but to many, it doesn’t seem that way. The choice to paint the figures “blank” emphasizes the universality of the struggle: trying to stand out when everyone around them seems to be achieving great things in a competitive environment. Furthermore, when many do so while still presenting the appearance of a relaxed student, it becomes difficult for an individual when everyone around them is accomplishing more with less effort. We wanted to depict that the struggling student is keenly aware of his own shortcomings through the detail and color that is present on the books he uses to study, unable to realize that everyone else has textbooks that are not colored for him to see. Our goal was to prompt viewers to empathize with, and better yet, understand the challenges faced by individuals who strive earnestly, especially when they feel that they are unable to “stand out” when they encounter hurdles on their journey.
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Creativity to us as a group simply means to try and see things from a new perspective, to see what already exists, take unrelated or loosely connected concepts and create something new with the purpose of understanding more.
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Lauren H., Abigail K.
