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Rusted: A Junior Conceptual Project by Connor Leak (2015)

Denial through the quick passage of time. I used three mediums to make my piece. My first medium is the background painting. The background was originally painted by me using watercolor paints. Then I scanned in the painting, and digitally inserted it into Adobe Photoshop so that I can edit it with my second medium. Then My second medium is a photo. The photo I took is of a piece of metal that I artificially rusted, and wrote on with a sharpie. The photo wasn’t scanned in, but I placed the file into Photoshop on top of my background, and I made the photo fade out along the edges. Finally, I placed that edited image into Adobe Illustrator, and I surrounded the picture with 8 red spheres, which I made using Illustrator.

Firstly, the main focus of my piece, the picture of the rusted steel, is the main object in my piece that represents denial. In the picture, I personify the piece of steel by making it say I am still new. What the piece of steel is saying is obviously not true, because it is clearly rusted and aged and it is in denial over how it has changed over the passage of time. Next, the dots surrounding the picture reinforce the idea of the passage of time, as they seem they are just one dot, slowly encircling the picture and fading away as time passes, as well. I chose the color of the spheres because I always associated red with denial because when you are in denial you feel frustrated, resentful, and even embarrassed. Finally the background color is a dark greyish-green color, making it seem like it is some sort of paint that has faded and become old, helping to convey passing time.
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