SEAN O'NEILL '24

What aspects of my identity and life experiences are symbols of either uncertainty or certainty? How can I use the visual elements of design,  including line, light and value, to represent that distinction? How can I use yarn and thread to create lines that draw the audience’s attention to a specific focal point, in order to represent personal significance of the highlighted elements? How can I use illustration, value, purposeful abstraction and visual distortion to depict progression in my identity?

Through experiments that combined weavings and illustrations, I established black and white thread as symbols of confusion and certainty, respectively. These developed into motifs to highlight places of discomfort and elements of hope and direction, respectively. After this I further experimented with loose threads and evolved my focus from specific elements to entire spaces to highlight what components in an image are personally significant. I then created 2 final pieces that synthesized multiple drawings, value and abstraction to depict different stages in my religious and personal identity.