In this particular assignment I wanted to avoid the cliches related to my personal history. I wanted to compose and create sometime new and with a narrative edge. What I mean by this is that my personal history has always been about moving. When I was a small child I moved between the US and Mexico many times. More recently, in my adult life I’ve chosen to move back to the US permanently, but find myself, as I always have, balancing two senses of identity. On one hand I have a very american culture and on the other a very Mexican one. So it would have been easy to make this piece about color and place flags, icons, or symbols of each country. Instead of that, I chose to go for a more minimalistic style and monochromatic. This allowed me to empathize my journey, and not the jump from a country or culture. I also chose to place quotes on two different pieces of paper as a way to hyperlink to two different cultures. Octavio Paz inhabits a very Mexican side of me, and he also wrote a lot about the identity of the Mexican in the US. Agatha Christie inhabited the other piece of paper, even though she is a 20th Century English novelist. I wanted to show that I am spread apart between two cultures and their languages. I often think more in Spanish, even when immersed in American life. Thus, placing a quote in English and writing in Spanish was a way for me to represent that.
The reason I chose ink is because I believe it’s a medium that is not very forgiving. Once one places it on the paper there is no going back. Any mistakes or improvisations get recorded whether you intended for them or not. Life is much the same way and I found it only appropriate to use ink to show that. In my process I used a pen with thick ink and created 6 different shades of ink with water solutions. Then with a napkin, I dampened it and applied the shades that I wanted on the page to create value. I also used markers to create shadows and shade in my body. The model for my body was a combination between a picture of myself and a reflection in the mirror of certain details. It proved very challenging to show the details using ink, and many a times I opted for a more minimalist style in order to avoid cluttering the ink. The steps all stem from a place of darkness. That is my birth and in from t of my is darkness - the future. Our minds can only grasp that we live moment by moment and also what we remember. Every step I drew is a moment and a memory, individual and unique from each other. In this assessment I wanted to challenge myself using media I’m not very comfortable with and to make decisions that support the theme and style of my artwork. 

References: http://www.centerpieceadvisory.com/press/artron-interview-on-contemporary-ink-painting-
topic_201307/
http://en.cafa.com.cn/interview-with-liu-jinan-contemporary-ink-painting-modern-art-of-chinese- character.html
http://www.inkandben.com/blog/appropriatism-vs-minimalism http://arts.umich.edu/ink/tag/minimalism/
http://www.risecollaborative.com/uncategorized/new-take-minimalism-chatting-alyssa-ink- alyssa/