Charlotte Burton
Our identity is made up of our past experiences, our present personality and our future decisions; defining who we are. What would happen if you took that away? Hid it? Or missed it? My practice explores the concept of a person with only a hint of their identity left.
Through working with shadow you can create an idea of identity; a distorted silhouette, a mere depiction of something that was and can no longer be. The individuality of one’s shadow can never be created again in the same way as our personality is shaped to us. By painting a mask onto a person you are giving them a touch of anonymity but if you paint the same mask on a group of people they would all become identical. These techniques allow me to draw people’s attention to the little traces we leave behind that show what we have become, our identity.
Through working with shadow you can create an idea of identity; a distorted silhouette, a mere depiction of something that was and can no longer be. The individuality of one’s shadow can never be created again in the same way as our personality is shaped to us. By painting a mask onto a person you are giving them a touch of anonymity but if you paint the same mask on a group of people they would all become identical. These techniques allow me to draw people’s attention to the little traces we leave behind that show what we have become, our identity.