Persephone - a Final Project for "The Art of Self-Portraits" course

Hi! My nake's Kate, or Chris, or Tavy, depending on the situation. I'm a non-binary business analyst from Kyiv, Ukraine

I've already had some artistic experience before starting this course and knew that if left in peace I would likely do what I always do - something about a king, or maybe an elf, fairy, or something. So I decided to follow the advice and go for some random input for my project. And "fruit" was that random theme. I first had no idea what to do with "fruit" - all I could think of was stock imagery with oranges and juicy pineapples and sun and cocktails, the mood that is so not me so I wondered how can I possibly self-express myself with it. But then I started to think, maybe pineapple isn't the only fruit in the world. Maybe I just don't have others in my active imaginative vocabulary. And so the "Persephone" concept appeared - dark as I like it, with a pomegranate fruit as a symbol of life and blood and treasure and death. That was something that I really feel, something I could truly relay to.

I'm a little shy to show my whole body and face in photos, that's one of the reasons I decided to start making face-portraits, and I'm so grateful for the advice to start at least with something - a small figure, a leg, a hand. I totally could start with hands.

I made a sketch, and it surprisingly worked out as planned. I wasn't able to achieve exactly the light I wanted, and here again - thanks! - for the advice to go with what you have, cause it helped me to not overengineer it too much and just have some fun instead with the light I had. Another thing that didn't work out 100% was that I wanted to tear the pomegranate apart in the photo, but the very first attempt showed that it's really hard to catch the exact moment and that everything around becomes covered with juice and seeds :)