Living in India, a great importance is placed on community and family. I am the sum of my parts: my dad’s jaw, my mom’s curls. But more importantly, from them, I have learnt and curated my value and belief systems. In our interdependent states, we are an amalgamation of the people we surround ourselves and engage with, the people who we love and prioritize.
As part of my IGCSE portfolio titled ‘Who am I?’, I created this A2 sheet titled ‘Who makes us?’. It incorporates first hand studies, developmental sketches and digital exploration (photoshop, adobe illustrator) to create various multimedia portraits of my family members that I eventually merged to create the abstract graphite piece. The piece symbolizes that we each carry a part of the others, and apart from sharing physical characteristics, we influence each other in more intangible and abstract ways as well.