Little Bro, Pre-cut

so i have this crazy idea that requires me to cut my paintings into little pieces. I thought I would show you guys before I take it to the table saw....

Self-portrait.

Not done....but I will show you the progress. Lots of work needed.

Epiphany.

Deciding what to paint is so difficult for me. Not to toot my own horn, but I do feel capable of making any style of painting, from realism to abstract(I'm not saying I'm as good as Chuck Close or Picasso, just saying that I am capable to exploring both sides of the spectrum). Because of this, I struggle to find a balance. I love the attention to paint instead of content that abstract paintings deal with, but I love seeing the labor in realism. My question is how do I combine both? How do I take something like definitive imagery and use it in a way that you can't acknowledge what it is? How do you make something valuable with mastery look loose, naive, and valueless? Am I interested in painting more than I am in people? I enjoy painting people, but they carry with them a unique identity and by painting them I single out everybody else therefore creating less interesting art. Maybe creating long horizontal paintings featuring masses, some detailed, some not, unfinished like their lives, raw and uncontrollable like life itself.

Whoa, I just had an epiphany. Thanks for listening.

I can't really explain what just clicked in my mind, but I can show you old work I have done what has finally made things make sense.

Maybe not Identity.

I've been thinking way too much about my art. I feel like I am trying to write a revolutionary book in a language I don't even understand. Art can be very conceptual, some times, too conceptual. I like to paint people, but I hate identity, or freezing moments in time. I want to do a series that exercise what art is to me through portraits of people who have been inspirations to me, mainly including family and friends.

Identity in Progress (cont.)

Okay, so after realizing that a matrix of squares on top was not enough, I made some for the bottom. I'll upload a better picture later. Maybe.

::edit::

I had class critique today and presented the piece you see above. I presented the idea that this painting represents a lacking structured identity juxtaposed to a plethora of unrefined identities. I thought it looked cool and I was content. Little did I know I was not done. Although, to me, it is aesthetically pleasing, there is a lacking concept in the piece presented above because it seems as if this torso is being sandwiched by heads instead considering the many possible identities it could mold itself after. So here is the new version...still in progress. This piece alludes to the self-portrait of 30 me's tiled together that I did last semester.

Identity in Progress.

The piece I just posted is mainly dealing with identity. I am still not sure which path I am currently persuing, but I am starting to grasp elements and ideas that interest me. For example, I am really drawn to individualism and identity but at the same time fascinated by the masses and reletivity. I love structure and the sense of stability while maintaining human touch, ambiguity, and spontaneity. I'll go into a deeper analysis when I post the finished product.