Self Portrait Response

   This self-portrait assignment was a difficult one to approach. In these past couple years of art and photography, little to none of my work has included myself (in a literal sense) in any capacity. Not only was actually becoming the subject of a piece of work intimidating, but the self-reflection that would come with it as well.

   My online footprint is very minimal, largely due to my aversion to social media since middle school. If you had searched my name before I began attending Washington State this term, you would find an old Instagram account with no pictures and my name mentioned in an article about an art show that I was in. However, since becoming a student here, I have created another blog for my Digital Imaging course. Here, I have been posting my work fairly frequently. This blog is not only the sole way of finding my work online, but it is also the only information that an outsider observer could use to try to make sense of who Kyle Kopta is.

   Considering this, I wanted to play with the idea of how someone who does not know who I am personally would construct an image of me using the catalog of images that I have given them. Like a puzzle, how would putting the pieces together result in an interpretation of me? I did this by first creating a mosaic of my images by using a contact sheet. This would be the raw "data" that would be put together by the viewer to make up me. Then, I took one of the few photos I have of myself into Illustrator and created a digital painting that would make reference to the art show portion of my online presence. This digital painting was then laid over the contact sheet of photographs. I made sure that the colors found in my photos and the picture of my face were complimentary as well.

   The end result was not something I was crazy about, but the process of making it was much more important to me than the final result. If I were to do it again (which I probably will), I would make the final image of me draw from more abstract expressionism paintings, as the way I have it now is much more of a literal interpretation of what I look like. It will be interesting to see how this online interpretation of me evolves in the next couple of years, as I plan to share more of my art online in the future.