Concept Statement
PhotoPlastics

Everyday there are countless numbers of people seeking a way to perfect themselves. They look for certain solutions that correspond to drugs, doctors, and other costly -- yet cheap -- solutions.

Within everyone there is a natural beauty that lies both on the surface as well as within. However, people do not recognize these components of their characteristics because they are all too busy buying into the pictures of celebrities and supermodels they see on magazines or television. There is no way to escape this horrendous imagery, which set the standards for our own selfless lives.

We look too much upon others to achieve that ultimate perfection, which is nearly there when we are born. Yet, people are not satisfied with the way they look, which leads them to continually seek their ultimate solution.

Thus, through this project I wanted to focus on the issues of plastic surgery and how it has entered into the world of digital technology. If there are not enough funds to alter oneself physically, the next best thing is to get one's image photoshopped, or digitally altered in some way. It is a commodity that is readily available at our fingertips for us to use as we please.

I started the project by introducing elements that once can select in order to compile a perfect image of one self. It is an idea based upon some of the fundamental components of photoshop that address the issues of cutting, pasting, cropping, and selecting. Through this process I was able to introduce a montage of ideal characteristics.

The way in which I started these surgical portraits was by introducing an idea that when we are born we are automatically placed within a society that judges us by our appearance; and it is since birth that our parents protect us by adjusting our image to fit in to the normalcy of the world. As we progress through our developmental periods in life we are then given the oppurtunity to make our own choices, leading to our derranged self-portrait of a character that is completely made up. I did not attempt the images in order to achieve a quality that denotes and altered and disturbing self image of oneself in so-called digital age.