This is an analysis of my art works that have something in common; the one-and-a-half-horned fawn-demon 22-year-old woman-thing that follows me around and occasionally makes my life a living hell. Her name is none other than Enzie Adair. I will be looking into symbolism, such as Color Theory and the Yin Yang sign.
I know she’s not really real. I tend to label myself as a Cartoonist/Comic Writer. Detail and realism is the opposite of my forte. It just makes realizing what’s in my head a quicker and more efficient thing to do. Enzie to me, however, can be as real as looking in a mirror. So what do we see here?
I can see from my own work that I use a fair bit of Color Theory. A quick self analysis of these works can tell me that, from the piece on the left, I portray my colors to be red, while I portray Enzie’s colors to be yellowish. It’s all about color theory in my eyes. Red can symbolize caution, danger, anger, love, hate, and so much more that is bold and strong. It is the perfect color for myself, in my opinion, because I feel so much. All these interpretations and emotions that a color can contain, and the diversity of these emotions, describe me and my life quite well, with my intense mood swings and all.
So what does yellow mean? To me, yellow mainly means boredom. Such a bland color. Yeah it’s bright, yeah it can be interpreted to be gold (which would explain her superiority-complex), but in my opinion it’s not all that great a color. But that’s just me. So in short, I interpret Enzie to be bored. She’s bored of her existence, her appearance, and perhaps the fact that she cannot be seen by anyone other than me. And in comes the interesting part.
I almost always draw, paint, sketch, even sculpt her to look away from onlookers. Is she ashamed? Does she not care for her audience that sees her? Is she unaware that through art, others can see her too? Either way, she focuses on something that is not seen on the page. She is watching something carefully and cautiously, like a guardian of sorts, her weapon shown in her hand, whatever it may be. What does that mean? Does she protect me, despite she herself being a threat? It just means she is a danger, whether it is to me or to those who threaten me.
Another symbol that I like to use whenever I draw Enzie and I in the same frame is the Yin Yang symbol. Everyone knows it (or at least, I have been led to believe so), it is the ancient Chinese symbol of life and balance. Yin (the black) would represent femininity, passiveness, the moon and covertness. Whereas Yang (the white) would be the opposite and represent masculinity, activeness, the sun and openness. In some interpretations, Yin is good and Yang is evil, connoting to the tradition in Chinese theater that good characters would wear black or have black masks and evil characters would have white.
I’ve made this tie in with my art about myself and Enzie because of our relationship and how Ying and Yang suits our personalities so much. I am Yin because compared to Enzie I am good, I am the more feminine one in terms of style and behavior, and I am the more passive in terms of demands and expectations of Enzie. Enzie, on the other hand, is the opposite.
Notice how there is a small circle of Yin in Yang, and vice versa. Life is all about knowing that there is good in the bad, and bad in the good. It applies to nearly everything. Same with Enzie. She is horrible. Evil. Mean. Controlling. But I know that there is some good in her, just like how she tries to bring out the bad in me. Neither of us are perfect in good or bad. This is what makes us our own characters.
This is all very related to my previous research in Surrealism, where I am merely realizing the visuals of what I see in the back of my mind. Though I rarely see Enzie in my dreams, I strongly believe that she counts for a subconscious vision. There isn’t much Automatism involved (my style is usually precise and naturalistic) but at the same time this isn’t real. She isn’t real. At least, I figure it to be so.
Siobhan's Art Corner 