As the prestigious Scholastic Art & Writing Awards draws closer, Advanced Art students are feeling the pressure to create original and moving portfolios in the hopes of impressing the judges. One such artist is senior Madi Hager, who is basing her art off the theme of “Imperfection.”
Madi is taking a particularly personal stance with her pieces, many of which are modeled after what she perceives as her own imperfections. Right now she is working on pieces centered on her insecurities about her nose, her short stature, and, most dramatically, her scoliosis.
“My biggest inspiration [for this portfolio] would be my scoliosis,” said Madi. “I’ve had a hard time dealing with that for many years, and it’s easy for me to pull my physical and emotional feelings out of my back and into a picture.”
Madi’s piece on her scoliosis is based on an x-ray of her spine. The viewer can clearly see where the spine is unaligned. However, this jarring picture is blended with a self-portrait of Madi, so that the audience also sees the everyday “normal Madi” that is seen on the outside.
“People don’t see what is truly going on,” said Madi. “People don’t see what you deal with everyday just from sitting down. My intention was to show these people my invisible weakness.”
Although many of her early concepts focus on herself, Madi is planning on incorporating other aspects into her portfolio as well, even challenging society’s ideas on imperfection. She specifically mentions that she hopes to incorporate separate pieces on Asperger’s and divorce into her portfolio. “[The portfolio] is going to be a lot of different things, not just people. It’s going to be about things you see in life, situations— any kind of concept I can feel that emotion with.”
Along with evolving her ideas on imperfection, Madi will also be changing her mediums as her work expands. So far she has only used white charcoal and colored pencil, but she already has plans to use mixed media with fabric, plastics, paint, and pen among others.
“I recently saw some artwork that really got me inspired to explore and get out of my comfort zone. I want to use any possible medium I can find. Anything I can draw on other than paper, I will use,” enthused Madi.
So far, reactions from fellow art students have been positive. Many have encouraged Madi with her idea and her bravery in choosing such a vulnerable topic.
On her hopes for presenting her portfolio, Madi had this to say: “I know when it’s all finished, people are going to have a big reaction. I just hope people will have understanding and compassion for things in life that just aren’t fair—things in life that you can accept and see as beautiful and weaknesses that may cause pain for people but do not separate these people from society. The imperfections I’m going to create are things that people should take notice of whether they are easily judged or difficult to see.”
