Self-Initiated Brief

Refining a Concept

From last week I have continued to think of a defining concept for this brief, I began with exploring the idea of possessions, belongings and the process of collecting objects. This developed into looking at the psychology of hoarding items and the emotional attachment that an individual can have towards an object. My intentions are to analyse why hoarding is related to emotions such as anxiety, and that it is linked to extreme indecisiveness when it comes to choosing what to keep and what to discard. I will aim to produce a body of work that demonstrates an abstraction of this concept, experimenting with factors such as the repetitiveness of hoarding and collecting, creating pieces that represent the accumulation of useless items and the idea that it becomes an endless cycle.

My initial drawings are based on photographs that I took of my home and other people's homes with evidence of hoarding and accumulation of objects. The drawings represent the chaotic nature of the photographs, symbolising the items piled on top of each other in no particular order. The colours reflect the emotions, red stands for anxiety and perhaps anger and frustration that can be caused by the stresses of hoarding. The pink shades represent affection, and not being able to part with belongings because of the sentimental value behind it.

I progressed by introducing a more graphic element to my drawings with black fine liner, creating minuscule circles to represent accumulation and the repetitive cycle of hoarding and how it creates a sense of growth. I decided to bring in photographs of people in order to involve the individual as well as the objects.