Reassembled (9"x12", Graphite and Digital. November 2019) was a final project for a lecture course I was taking during Fall Semester 2019. The only requirement was that the piece had to pertain to something that was taught in the class. For me, I was really drawn to Sigmund Freud's idea of the "uncanny". Artist Mike Kelley is one artist I drew inspiration from as he has iterated on this idea of the "uncanny" through various art pieces. Reassembled is my first iteration on the idea of the "uncanny"

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One idea that classifies an artwork to be "uncanny" is the rearrangement of bodily features. If features that are recognizable as belonging on a human figure are not in the expected places or are duplicated this qualifies as being "uncanny". That is exactly what I did with this piece here. There are many human parts on this upper body and some features are not off from their original location. However, certain features are incomplete or duplicated. The fungus-like structures emerging from the shoulder and either arm are additions to make the figure that much more unnatural and to provide information for the viewer to ponder on. 

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In addition to Mike Kelley, Zdzislaw Beksinski was another artist I drew stylistic inspiration from while rendering this portrait. 

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Reassembled started out as a graphite sketch on 9"x12" paper then was imported to Adobe Photoshop and given a digitally painted background.