26 SYZYGY: An Eclipse of the Self

Faculty Mentor: Maureen O’Hara Ure (Art and Art History, University of Utah)

syzygy • \SIZ-i-jee\ • noun. : the alignment of three celestial bodies such as the earth, sun, and moon during an eclipse.

In psychology, syzygy describes the balanced union of different aspects of the self, such as the conscious and unconscious, the masculine and feminine, or the rational and irrational. In this creative research project, I developed a series of images, an abstract narrative, as an artist’s book. This work reflects my personal, intellectual, and artistic growth throughout my years studying art at the University of Utah.

I spent the majority of my research developing illustrations, working each through multiple iterations in my sketchbooks before I committed to a given page for the resulting book I plan to publish in a small edition.

In my freshman year, I was sitting in an Intro to Film & Media Arts course. The lecturer was explaining the skills a good screenwriter needs, how it doesn’t matter if your plot is boring, you need to make the audience care about your characters, and you can never write characters better than your own understanding of human behavior. This idea has remained with me ever since, causing me to reflect on why I was drawn to specific media.

An artist understanding why something was created is often just as, if not more important than, understanding what was created. All art is intrinsically tied to the experiences of its creator. The ability to look inside oneself as inspiration will allow better understanding of the work of others, and the feelings and experiences that inspired them. How an artist’s personal experiences and psychology shape the work created is of particular interest to me. In this research project, I focused on image-based narratives, analyzing my own experiences. I illustrated the feelings, themes, and influences that have become the foundation for my work.