Drawing II: Project 4 "Fear"

The thing that I fear the most are rats, they are very scary to me and I can't help but run and hide every time that I encounter one. My greatest fear however, is the "unknown" and all of the questions that you may never know the answers to, such as all of the "What if's?" in life.

I think that a lot of people in our society relate to a fear of rats and of the unknown. Our society is always coming up with diffferent ideas of what they believe that the unknown consists of. Some examples of these question are: what lies outside of outside of our solar system, is there life on other planets?, religious views, what happens when you die?, etc. Many people on this earth have different beliefs about what they think the unknown consists of, but the truth is, we may never actually have any or all of the answers that we are looking for.

My fears are both concrete and abstract ones. The terrifying rats are a concrete fear, as they actually exist and the unknown is an abstract fear which has been created.

Photo of fear:

Fear multiplied in size:

Fear emphasized:

Fear minimized:

An artist that I found on The Drawing Center's Viewing Program Web site is Sarah Hardesty. Her art relates to my views specifically in the portion of her artist statement that says she likes to "create situations that anticipate, but alleviates the potential for damage". I believe that by anticipating certain situations fear can be diminished, which is just what I am trying to portray in my photo of fear minimized.