Tanaya Nayaka
Artist, Content Creator
but i'm still here
(2022)
A piece about feeling stunted in growth/living the same days over and over. To represent these feelings, I painted a piece I literally wouldn’t "allow to die.” Even after I was done with this painting, I still found myself adding and subtracting until it felt…”right.”
As you can see, there were the main stages of the painting: the original idea of a sad and gloomy piece, to an off-putting self-portrait with notes of humor, childhood, art school tropes, and aimlessness.
First stage: vague sketch of a self-portrait.
Second stage: adding detail and carving out the message I wanted to convey through this piece.
Final stage: Honestly, just having fun, playing with the absurdity, until I was satisfied with the final piece.