Portrait Project

This project's character was based on the idea of depression and loneliness. The hollow eyes and lack of physical form are meant to emulate the feeling of emptiness or sorrow. Inspiration was taken mainly from a ghost that appears sporadically in the series The Haunting of Bly Manor with glowing eyes, but I chose to pursue a lack of a definitive shape for the ambiguity. My character exists solely within this broken-down house, with all portraits in the setting of this home showing how the character exists with other objects or beings it cohabitates with. The mice, moths, butterflies, and cockroaches are meant to be the character's only source of interaction or "friends". Using shapes that are associated with death and decay (the crows, moths, etc.) is key to understanding how the outside world views this place my character exists within. They are trapped within a space that they cannot escape from or care for/maintain, so they learned to live in their everchanging space and take care of themselves. Intentionally, there are no other characters introduced that would exist there on their own regardless of the existence of the shadow-being. Nothing is dependent on the character to exist but they have learned to enjoy each other's company. There are other sources of happiness that are reflected in the colors and choice of objects, such as the cake, the rubber duck, or the letter and dead flowers, while other objects like the moths are kept in black and white.