Re-Discovering My Humanity
I consider myself to be on an Inner Journey Outer Destination where I am learning new things about myself. This thought of re-discovering my humanity came to mind at a time when I needed it as I always feel like I’m on the verge of having an existential crisis.
I tend to feel at odds with my reality as I try to understand why chronic social issues persists. The thought that I can re-discover my humanity feels like a small key to cracking the impenetrable cycle of oppression.
The thought of reclaiming the good parts of what it means to alive, to be human seems like a way to cut through the intricate systems that cause suffering as I can focus on healthy feelings and actions like empathy and reciprocity to connect with others.
This seems like a simple task but how do I actually redefine and celebrate my being when we as humans have such turbulent histories with contradictory beliefs and practices. This is actually the first step though, ask questions.
The Process of Re-Discovery
If asking questions is the first step to re-discovering my humanity, then trying to find answers is the next step. The main questions I have is what does it mean to re-discover my humanity and how do I do this?
To find answers I turn to what I know best and what makes me feel free, art. I have not come to any conclusions to what a re-discovered humanity is but I have a few inklings that it is a humanity full of love, radical inclusion, critical awareness, limitless curiosity, and celebrated diversity.
I can offer an example of how I reached such ideas through my art. This is a hand-drawn image of a humanlike figure. I drew these to put my twist on a one-line drawing to highlight our African facial and hair features. At first I only drew heads then I gave them bodies. I wanted the bodies to look indistinguishable, not feminine nor masculine, so I drew their bodies with straight lines.
After drawing this style for awhile, I started experimenting and drawing the inside of the body more organically to allow different shapes and curves to emerge. I realized that both styles of the body were nice but the organic shapes of the second resonated more. I could show different body shapes and sizes as opposed to sticking with this neutral frame of a body I first created.
Recalling these different styles, I understand that I was just drawing and did not have the specific aim to re-discover my humanity. Also, the first versions of the bodies were created that way because I was trying to portray some sense of equality even though the faces were different. I wanted to wrestle with our conceptions of race and bias by wanting to show our differences and similarities and how we all deserve equity despite our differing attributes.
Yet I find that this sentiment still rings true for the second version of organically drawn bodies because the style and color theme provided some sameness amongst the figures.
The changes I made to these drawings allowed me to play with ideas around human diversity. I feel like I am able to re-discover my humanity through this art style by holding our complexity because we are similarly made up of the same atoms and matter that are just presented in many different ways.
For this reason, I decided to name this art style Complex Nature (or CN). I also like the name CN as I have continue to play with this style in various mediums such as paintings, pastels, and digital illustrations.
By creating Complex Nature art, I am able to increase my awareness, feed my curiosity, and re-discover my humanity.
What part of your humanity do you want to re-discover and how will you explore this?
