You are the creator of their impression

Sienna Matijas

Keywords: The sea of faces

sienna-matijas@hotmail.com

I am a young Artist from France and I grew up in the romantic city of Paris. Where the people rush through life to their planned future and stop for only the extraordinary. My mother introduced me to the art world through her photography profession. And thanks to my family I got to travel the world and become a true nomad. It opened a doorway that made me have an open and free spirit. She inspired me to create and so I decided to go to art school, this transition to art was seamless since it felt natural to do so. I started in a Design high school, Auguste Renoir, which help me see the tools available to me. I knew I wanted to go to fine art, so I chose this modest preparatory school, Atelier de Sèvre in Paris. They helped me open doors to the academia in the Netherlands, the royal academy of art, KABK. I never believed I would find myself in the Hague but here I was, in a new city and culture. I became surrounded by a sea of new faces, faces that would fuel my art and expression. I met many artist-teachers, with their stories to tell, Arjen Bos was one of them at my school, truly a master of pottery, he introduced me to ceramics where I now find a deep love for.

When I first entered the school, I wanted to create and make something that will have people stop and experience a significant moment in time. I have now found that I have a true desire to show my world through art. I explore and create my opinions, conclusions, and answers, to questions that come up in my findings. And when I have found something that has made me pause I will show it to you through my eyes. You can say it is a surrealist approach to art. 

I have learned multiple disciplines since I believe the mediums I use are but tools at my disposal, and they all can offer me the process I am looking for. I feel that the Arts are like a metaphysical being, that once you have encountered it, you can never stop loving it. It comes from a deep part of myself, which can easily be identified now as the depth of my soul, the dark sub-conscious places that are within my psyche. I will dare to let myself fall into the abyss, and come out from the other side with new and wondrous artworks.

YOU ARE THE CREATOR OF THEIR IMPRESSION

Graduation Project

My work is about a person such as myself surrounded by a crowd of faces, these faces are people opinions, desires and wills. I refer to them as the impression I have of who they are and how that affects me. What we see and hear isn’t always the reality. What is reality but the association we come up with the senses we are born with.

I am trying to convince myself that their opinion of myself and the world is not as important as my own. That what I think of them, and what they think important should not always become my reality. People can be more malleable than our image of them.

My process was to show that by creating these impressions I surround myself more and more with no end in sight. With these faces that talk and talk, their never-ending chatter. Even though I tell myself not to listen I still will create more faces to add to the boundless sea of them.

I cannot help myself making these faces and will not stop, I show you my endless restlessness. For there are countless possibilities in the people that surround me.

Faces are the surrealist view I have of others, and how I can grow dependant of them, on their opinions their affection. However, I find that even though they are a big part of myself I must remind myself that they are not me, I am me. I must have a voice as well and speak on equal ground. I will not be swallowed by the chatter, the noise.

They are subtle, almost blending into the background of the space. I made them this way thinking that the faces I am presenting are not always so clear and sharp. They do not all stand out and most are just people in a crowd, passing by. Some are flexible others hard, there are the old and new. The old linger like a bad wound or remind me of what I have. The new are still soft and wet, still have a possibility to change but once it dries, they can either crumble or last forever.

I always thought that faces have the largest impact on my perception of them, their expression and their intentions. The eyes have always haunted me and made the understanding of another busy. So, I remove them, make them blind to each other, if they cannot see then they cannot see me. A face is what makes someone human no matter what it looks like. Their features are the first thing I see and the last thing I remember is their impression. It is all connected.

I am the subject of my work. My voice, my inner thoughts, I am monologuing.

DESCENT INTO MADNESS

Thesis

Institute for Mental Health The Association for special cases Date: 12/03/1949

Patient no 3161684 sufferers from delusions, they believe in an imaginary being causing them to do self-harm. My goal is to break their delusion and understanding it. Then I will recreate it to show the illogic in their reasoning and actions. Here is a written recording of our first and last session together. When I first started my research on delusions, I wanted to delve into the bottomless pit of what you call faith. I must tell you that faith has many meanings but is still primarily, giving great trust and confidence to someone or something. To give such trust to another is a state of mind that drove me to where I am now. They describe their delusion as a metaphysical being, that once you have encountered it, you can never stop loving it. It comes from the deep, which can easily be identified now as the depth of the soul, the dark sub-conscious places that are within their psyche. The patient through themselves at their faith disregarding all logic and self-preservation. How did it come to this? Their descent into madness must have an end.