Wonderland
When I looked back at the remains of some of my childhood drawings, I noticed a particular theme which I always followed, it was the thought of growing up getting out of the protected cage I was being prisoned in and entering the outside ‘real world’. At that time I pictured Alice from Alice in Wonderland as someone I identified with or someone I wanted to be. I dreamt of a colorful magical world like hers and wanted to be a part of it. I was so enamored by the world that surrounded her, that I compared growing up and freedom as a journey similar to entering ‘Wonderland’. Now at the near end of my 16th year, when I look back, I realized, where I am now is NOT wonderland. I am not living the colorful life I thought I would live. Reality is brutal, harsh, confusing, mysterious, maze like and somewhat unexpected. This urged me to create a piece based on the idea that when you’re a child, you are naive, innocent, and pure as you have not faced the brutal reality, you are not trapped and that this is the time of your life where you probably have the most freedom in the world…life is like a bed of roses. It is the time where you are most colorful and your wonderland, should be where your are at that very moment. Don’t try to find your perfect world by following a rabbit the way Alice did. My piece ‘Wonderland’ portrays Alice, an alter child persona of me, dressed in bright colors representing her bright imaginary world oblivious of the fact that the path she was following a complete contrast of her naive, ignorant and innocent interpretation of ‘Wonderland’. Wonderland is depicted with sharp, dark, and thick forestation to portray the brutal, and harsh world I am surrounded with while growing up. It is the clash between my imaginary world as a child and the reality I face as an adolescent. My main inspirations came from Tim Burton, who uses dark, quirky, and noir elements in his movies such as his adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, and Edward Scissorhands. Other elements which contributed as an inspiration was the film, Pan’s Labrynth, and Annie Leibovitz’s themes and color combinations she uses in her photo shoots.
