LAYERS OF
SELF-DECEPTION
LAYERS OF
SELF-DECEPTION
the censored chapter of our lives
the censored chapter of our lives
MA FINE ART
Research Proposal
MA FINE ART
Research Proposal
I wouldn't be interested in doing what I know
I can do or what I have done before.
I want to be both the spectator and the artist.
I have to be surprised myself, otherwise it will be just another manipulation of art in whatever form.
I wouldn't be interested in doing what I know
I can do or what I have done before.
I want to be both the spectator and the artist.
I have to be surprised myself, otherwise it will be just another manipulation of art in whatever form.
“With all that which a person allows to appear one may ask: what is meant to hide? What about it divert the eyes from? How far does he deceive himself in his action?” --- F. Nietzsche, The Dawn
“With all that which a person allows to appear one may ask: what is meant to hide? What about it divert the eyes from? How far does he deceive himself in his action?” --- F. Nietzsche, The Dawn
Our subjective experiences are not always straightforwardly and transparently self-consistent.
Self-deception is very human, and we are inclined to deceive ourselves because our tendency is to try to deny and escape from what we don’t want to admit. But mostly, we lie to ourselves because we want to be a certain way.
The discussion of self-deception is more than just another intricate subject of philosophy. It is an existential concern, morally problematic, that is making us strangers to ourselves. It affects our behaviour to the extent of becoming an obstacle to self-knowledge.
Every aspect of self-deception, starting with the definition is a matter of controversy. What are the thought processes that lead us to self-deception?
My work questions the relationship with the self which is arguably the most important. It is the foundation of our character and reveals how we interact with the world.
Our subjective experiences are not always straightforwardly and transparently self-consistent.
Self-deception is very human, and we are inclined to deceive ourselves because our tendency is to try to deny and escape from what we don’t want to admit. But mostly, we lie to ourselves because we want to be a certain way.
The discussion of self-deception is more than just another intricate subject of philosophy. It is an existential concern, morally problematic, that is making us strangers to ourselves. It affects our behaviour to the extent of becoming an obstacle to self-knowledge.
Every aspect of self-deception, starting with the definition is a matter of controversy. What are the thought processes that lead us to self-deception?
My work questions the relationship with the self which is arguably the most important. It is the foundation of our character and reveals how we interact with the world.
SUBJECT AREA
Exploring new channels of visual expressions of the identity.
My main area of investigation is the complex interaction between art and human behaviour, perception, and aesthetic appearances. My study focuses on the projected image, the perfect picture – opposed to the inner gestural, kinaesthetic image. I am interested, in visual terms, about the split of the unconscious mind, a kind of intrinsic research an experimentation, an alchemy of the soul.
My work looks at our relationship with self in the context of a society which is also concerned about who we are as human beings and how we interact with each other.
Art offers a place where we can think about our thought processes. It extends a self-reflexivity where we are constantly questioning, not just moving through life accepting things, using the same masks or avatars of deception. How can we become better versions of ourselves? I want to ask vivid questions about the significance of deconstruction and reconstruction of ourselves.
The aim of the project
Self-deception is such a common theme yet so profound and tremendously difficult to grasp and unfold.
My ambition is to open a visual discourse and widen a possible inner debate around my area of investigation and to develop an awareness, conceivably to be scratched of all layers and find the gold beneath.
The aim of the project is to investigate and substantiate the importance of an inner dialogue. To hold up the seven Essene mirrors that might help define the true self or at least certain aspects otherwise ignored or repressed. To deconstruct and reconstruct the self in terms of understanding the ingredients, or the pieces that makes us who we are, and put them back together improved, enhanced and substantially more aware of the true resonance of ourselves.
Objectives
- To collect and classify relevant information about self-reflexivity and inner dialogue through research and experimentation.
- To devise a method of producing a stream-of-consciousness outcome using the narrative techniques of interior monologue.
- To develop a method of approach, through experimentation using disparate fragments of text and narrative, colours, and textures, in a dialogue with one another for the purpose of producing the relevant visual discourse.
SUBJECT AREA
Exploring new channels of visual expressions of the identity.
My main area of investigation is the complex interaction between art and human behaviour, perception, and aesthetic appearances. My study focuses on the projected image, the perfect picture – opposed to the inner gestural, kinaesthetic image. I am interested, in visual terms, about the split of the unconscious mind, a kind of intrinsic research an experimentation, an alchemy of the soul.
My work looks at our relationship with self in the context of a society which is also concerned about who we are as human beings and how we interact with each other.
Art offers a place where we can think about our thought processes. It extends a self-reflexivity where we are constantly questioning, not just moving through life accepting things, using the same masks or avatars of deception. How can we become better versions of ourselves? I want to ask vivid questions about the significance of deconstruction and reconstruction of ourselves.
The aim of the project
Self-deception is such a common theme yet so profound and tremendously difficult to grasp and unfold.
My ambition is to open a visual discourse and widen a possible inner debate around my area of investigation and to develop an awareness, conceivably to be scratched of all layers and find the gold beneath.
The aim of the project is to investigate and substantiate the importance of an inner dialogue. To hold up the seven Essene mirrors that might help define the true self or at least certain aspects otherwise ignored or repressed. To deconstruct and reconstruct the self in terms of understanding the ingredients, or the pieces that makes us who we are, and put them back together improved, enhanced and substantially more aware of the true resonance of ourselves.
Objectives
- To collect and classify relevant information about self-reflexivity and inner dialogue through research and experimentation.
- To devise a method of producing a stream-of-consciousness outcome using the narrative techniques of interior monologue.
- To develop a method of approach, through experimentation using disparate fragments of text and narrative, colours, and textures, in a dialogue with one another for the purpose of producing the relevant visual discourse.
The film burns on the face of Bibi Andersson.
© auralcrave.com (Mattia Bonasia, Ingmar Bergman’s Persona: The Soul and the Mask, cinema as a theatre)
The film burns on the face of Bibi Andersson.
© auralcrave.com (Mattia Bonasia, Ingmar Bergman’s Persona: The Soul and the Mask, cinema as a theatre)
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Ideas and concepts
What define us? What makes us who we are? According to C.G. Jung, the Persona represents the social mask that each of us wear in our social interactions with others in society – the personality that we try to portray to others.
In this regard, my interest grows to research the amalgamation of our being, and the expansion of self to the interpretation of the whole concept. But how can one confront the unconscious? How can we truly know ourselves?
Both Sigmund Freud and Carl C.G. Jung referred to the unconscious as having the most important role in personality and behaviour. Expanding Freud’s idea of personal unconscious, C.G. Jung included in the human psyche three other components: the shadow, the sexual archetype, designated as anima (men) and animus (women) and the collective unconscious, the latter believed to be a unique component that contains all the knowledge and experience that humans collectively share.
Another question we often pounder is What is our purpose? or more generic What is the purpose of life? Jung believed that most of our sufferings come from the distress of the human psyche. To start looking for answers we must first go back to the ancient temple of Apollo in Delphi on which forecourt was inscribed “Know thyself”. In Plato’s Phaedo Dialogues, Socrates explains that wisdom can only be attained after death for is only then the mind (the psyche) is liberated from the distractions of the body. Therefore, Socrates argues for the immortality of the soul. Yet, in another platonic interpretation “knowing thyself” is a matter of freeing from the allegorical cave and crawling into the light of genuine knowledge. From Nietzsche’s perspective one must recognize and embrace individuality, own unique perspectives, and creatively define oneself.
Regardless of the many interpretations of the “self” when we begin the inner dialogue, we take a step forward in becoming the better – authentic – versions of ourselves, overcoming the identity crises through decompression of inflicted boundaries and breaking up the stereotypes imposed by society, education, and cultural frames.
One of the most explicit portrait and visual narrative of C.G. Jung’s archetypes is Ingmar Bergman’s Persona (1966) and although as an art film is open to interpretation, it is cultivating a mindful awareness of the C.G. Jungian core concepts.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Ideas and concepts
What define us? What makes us who we are? According to C.G. Jung, the Persona represents the social mask that each of us wear in our social interactions with others in society – the personality that we try to portray to others.
In this regard, my interest grows to research the amalgamation of our being, and the expansion of self to the interpretation of the whole concept. But how can one confront the unconscious? How can we truly know ourselves?
Both Sigmund Freud and Carl C.G. Jung referred to the unconscious as having the most important role in personality and behaviour. Expanding Freud’s idea of personal unconscious, C.G. Jung included in the human psyche three other components: the shadow, the sexual archetype, designated as anima (men) and animus (women) and the collective unconscious, the latter believed to be a unique component that contains all the knowledge and experience that humans collectively share.
Another question we often pounder is What is our purpose? or more generic What is the purpose of life? Jung believed that most of our sufferings come from the distress of the human psyche. To start looking for answers we must first go back to the ancient temple of Apollo in Delphi on which forecourt was inscribed “Know thyself”. In Plato’s Phaedo Dialogues, Socrates explains that wisdom can only be attained after death for is only then the mind (the psyche) is liberated from the distractions of the body. Therefore, Socrates argues for the immortality of the soul. Yet, in another platonic interpretation “knowing thyself” is a matter of freeing from the allegorical cave and crawling into the light of genuine knowledge. From Nietzsche’s perspective one must recognize and embrace individuality, own unique perspectives, and creatively define oneself.
Regardless of the many interpretations of the “self” when we begin the inner dialogue, we take a step forward in becoming the better – authentic – versions of ourselves, overcoming the identity crises through decompression of inflicted boundaries and breaking up the stereotypes imposed by society, education, and cultural frames.
One of the most explicit portrait and visual narrative of C.G. Jung’s archetypes is Ingmar Bergman’s Persona (1966) and although as an art film is open to interpretation, it is cultivating a mindful awareness of the C.G. Jungian core concepts.
Ioana Nestorescu-Balcesti - visual artist
London, UK based
The forms of expression that particularize and define my art have been gradually outlined during the stages of my evolution both through theoretical and practical investigation.
I researched more or less familiar areas and through various technical experiments, addressed both traditional and untraditional materials which led me to the discovery of new ways of understanding and using art.
What motivates me most are the concepts which I often ponder over – love, longing, death, mind, consciousness, faith – the significance of life itself, and from these themes I am experimenting, materializing, and transforming concepts into physical forms of art.
I consider myself a visual artist in general; I work across media with video, photography, drawing, text, and I don’t have a specific medium, a specific practice. I often combine these mediums within one work or one installation.
Research is an important part of my practice, and I am quite interested in associations, in connecting things through research that maybe traditionally wouldn’t be connected.
I have a particular interest in human behaviour, archetypes and patterns, anthropology, the hero’s myths, the collective unconsciousness connected through mythological themes and symbols, and I see my work as a dialogue with the world, eager to produce commentaries.
Artist Statement
Painting is silent poetry
As a child, I would have liked to have become an archaeologist. I hoped to find the cities of ancient civilizations, the remains of long-lost architectural masterpieces, fragments of life that no one knew anything about. And just as I spent my entire childhood in a museum, I was shared by the essences of the past, by the stories behind the exhibits, by the palette of shades of some faces and static forms but in constant change. Along the way, however, I realized that as time goes on, the colours change. Some become wiser, others on the contrary, more adventurous.
These changes, which make up the evolution of colours, fascinated me and made me want to be able to penetrate the alchemy of chromatic transformations. For this, I needed to set certain colour hypostases to analyze them later. And without realizing it, from my play as a researcher, I came to model the colours, to look for their malleability, to try to reconcile them with time, between them or on the contrary, to argue them to provoke storms and irreversible processes. I had become a grey eminence in the life of twilight shades. Since then I have continued to do this, understanding along the way that beyond colours, words were the ones that gave birth to the processes on the basis of which colours came to life. I assumed poetry as a prerogative in the hope that in this way I would be able to penetrate the psychology of the evolutionary processes of chromatics.
My works do not seek to amaze the viewer. They invite the one who is prepared for a journey of time. For me, colours are distinct life forms, complex characters whose genealogy will race you if you do not know it. White is the mother of these characters and black is a haunted father who denies his existence for the sake of protecting his offspring. And between these two parental barriers, between black and white, there is the saga of descending colours, whose subtle chronicler I was entrusted to be.
PERSONAL & GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2011 - "Highlights", Students Cultural House, Bucharest, Romania
2011 - "Eugene Ionesco, Eugen Ionescu" - sketches, models, happening (group exhibition), Exhibition Palace - Veletržní Palace, Prague, Czech Republic.
2011 - "The Birds", Visual Arts Center, Bucharest, Romania
2012 - "Art & Poetry", Romanian Youth Cultural Center, Bucharest, Romania
2012 - "Art Intersection I", (group exhibition) Visual Arts Center, Bucharest, Romania
2012 - "Artists Spring", (group exhibition) Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris
2013 - "Symbolom - installation - object", Romanian Youth Cultural Center, Bucharest
2013 - "Art Intersection II", (group exhibition) Visual Arts Center, Bucharest, Romania
2013 - "Art Brussels 2013", (group exhibition) Brussels, Belgium
2014 - Installation Exhibition (painting and poetry) "Windows", Romanian House of Scientists, Bucharest
2015 - "Collective Voices" Institute for the Advancement of Contemporary Visual Culture, Athens, Greece
2015 - Graphic arts exhibition - "Seven ink pots", Romanian House of Scientists, Bucharest
2015 - Graphic arts exhibition, Belgrade, "Singidunum'' Gallery
2016 - “Terrorism, migration, violence, alienation” within the International Conference “Female Freemasonry face to face with the current challenges Terrorism, migration, violence, alienation”, Ibis Hotel, Bucharest
2017 - "Alchemy", Galeria Romana, Bucharest, Romania
2018 - "Circles of Identity", Galeria Romana, Bucharest, Romania
2018 - "Art and design" Exhibition (group exhibition), University of East London, UK
2019 - "Circles of Identity", The East London Hub, London, UK
2020 - "Pandemic Art", Tehnoarte, online exhibition
2021 - "Vortex", Copeland Gallery, London, UK
OTHER ACTIVITIES
1995 - 2016 - Participation in creative camps, workshops and volunteering in various cultural projects
2008-2011 - Co-founder “Green Fair” project in collaboration with Luni @ Green Hours Theater, Romania
2008-2013 - Co-founder and manager of ZaZaStudioDesign, Romania
2013 - 2017 - Senior graphic designer, Tekart, Romania
2017 - present - Freelancing - graphic and digital media design
2021 - Co-founder and Art Director, Art in Conversation Gallery, London, UK
2021 - Founder This is design.uk - graphic design studio, London, UK
AWARDS
2011 - Special award at the "Fine Arts Contest Art as a means of communication - In the footsteps of Joan Miro" organized by the Romanian National Post Company S.A., under the High Patronage of the Ministry of Communications and Information Society, National Philatelic Museum, Bucharest, Romania
2006 - First Prize, National Poetry Festival “Costache Conachi”, 14th edition, Tecuci, Romania
2006 - Award of the Magazine “Convorbiri Literare” Iasi, within the same festival, Tecuci, Romania
2006 - Writers' Society Award “C. Negri ”Galati, within the same festival, Tecuci, Romania
2006 - Arhip Art Sibiu Publishing House Award, within the same festival, Tecuci, Romania
2006 - First Prize, 9th Edition of the National Contest for Literary Creation organized by the “Pavel Dan” Cenacle, Timisoara
2005 - Special Mention for the English Essay "The Different Concepts of Liberalism" Olive W. Garvey Fellowship Competition, The Independent Institute, California
2004 - Special prize at the “Poetry XXII” National Poetry Festival Festival, 3rd Edition, and the publication in the volume “Escape from oneself” (anthology of the festival, made by V. Munteanu) Cancicov Cultural Foundation Publishing House, Bacau, Romania
2003 - First Prize - The “Spring” Festival organized by the Ministry of Education and Research
2000 - Second Prize - Poetry Competition organized within a cultural project of the Library “I. L. Caragiale ”, Bucharest