“From the idea that the self is not given to us, I think there is only one practical consequence: we have to create ourselves as a work of art”. Foucault (1976)
An alter ego is an alternative version of us and has the potential to expand and explore an artist's identity, provide spaces to create physically as a performance or conceptually, aid creativity, social mobility and liberate the artist and their practice.
But how does the artist use this creative space and how do they manage their various selves? Do they and their other blur into each other or use boundaries and rituals that enable them both to flourish? And, what happens if the alter ego becomes the dominant force and a power struggle ensues?
How and why an artist uses an alter ego is complex. This exhibition explores how artists tackles their other selves and creates.
Artist: Adele Giles
Instagram : @adelegiles.art
Description: During my art degree, I struggled with shyness and found it difficult to express myself. As a result, I created an alter ego (Aurora Hale) as a form of armour, a way to freely express my thoughts and emotions without fear. The work I create under my own name (Adele Giles) is softer in its delivery and aligns more with traditional (more accepted) forms of art.
Artist: Francesco Puliga
Instagram : @francescopuliga_art
Description: In general, I'm a calm person so I wanted to represent my alter ego as an explosion of anger. In order to reinforce this feeling, I exaggerated the facial expression. To make the image more impactful, I painted the subject with unusual texture and unnatural color light. For achieving this goal, I used a mix of traditional and digital techniques.
Artist: Demeter Dykes
Instagram: @demeterdykes
Description: As a mature woman my work is the result of frustrations in relation to others’ expectations and misconceptions of me. This image was made in response to work by Stephanie James at Inspiring Objects exhibition, Spudworks, Sway. Making these origami ‘breasts’ or ‘buns’ was hugely time-consuming and difficult to do with over 100 folded units making up each form.
Artist: jojo
Instagram: @jojothephotographer
Description: I have two alter egos that I have immortalized in photographs, one a dashing politically incorrect 21st century musketeer, the other, a demon called Piggy that is constantly trying to persuade me to eat sweet treats. No matter how many times I think I have slain him, Piggy always returns. This work is the sixth in the series: self-portrait slaying my inner Piggy.
Artist: Frank Boyce
Instagram: @frankboyceart
Description: My work deals explores the Human psyche and all its contradictions. I am interested in the subconscious and in exploring what Freud termed the 'Unheimlich 'or uncanny.
Artist: Wolf Note Collective
Instagram: @wolfnotecollective
Website: https://www.wolfnotecollective.com/
Description@ THE WOLF NOTE COLLECTIVE is a total work of alteregotism. I have created a number of alternate personae under which I create music, video, visual art, and fiction using the premise of an arts collective that came together to collaborate, fornicate, and altercate before ultimately perishing together in a warehouse fire. The obstacles I overcame mostly have to do with inhibition, as being an Autistic person I am naturally very shy and reserved, and the idea of creating a set of alternate selves to explore ideas and art forms beyond my own experience and skillsets became the driving force behind this multitudinous project.
Artist: Claudia Tong
Instagram: @cxt.art
Description: "Nowhere (Wo)man". My alter ego is fluid and dynamic, inspired by a different path I could have taken, the opportunities I missed, and thousands of choices I could have made differently. It contains my hope, fear, anxiety, ecstatic joy and deepest regrets. An alter ego is personal, yet universal to all human beings, just like the skull which is not only my alter ego, but also could be anyone's.
Artist; Kate Peel
Instagram: @katepeelart
Description: Brutalism-The Future- Capitalism- Retrofitting-Digital Space- Physical Space- Context- Architecture of Ego- Architecture of Alter-Ego
Artist name: Demeter Dykes
Instagram : @demeterdykes
Description: Taking part in 30works30days (2023) with @Artquestlondon I was inspired by the brief for that day - Pretend to be a different artist for the day. I chose to be Ana Medieta in Untitled (Facial Hair Transplants), 1972. Moustaches are very difficult to get right.
Artist: Brandon 66
Instagram: @Dgaf_collective
Description: Behind DGAF collective, Huge Me Artist Brandon66 & Curator Frida the Angel are hiding to be able to let their creative silliness flow freely.
Artist: Skye Shadowlight
Instagram : @skyeshadowlight
Website: www.skyeshadowlight.com
Description: I went back in my past to figure something out and I found myself there. I created a childhood for a man who put a gun in my Mom's mouth, during the work I realised that it was my own childhood. I became him so I could control what he did and whether or not he would show remorse. The only obstacle was my own trauma.
Artist: Ralph Klewitz
Instagram: @ralphklewitz
Description:
WZ829_Mont6 (2022) Video, single channel (colour; stereo sound); 6:54 min.; loop
Technical assistance: Benjamin Parker
Two overlaid photogrammetric, 360º spherical fly-throughs comprise the video track. One is a point cloud, the other
a 3D textured mesh, and both renderings are fragmented. The camera moves and zooms around my bust, which is situated
in a garden. The soundtrack comprises a digitally distorted recording of human breathing in an echoed space with interwoven hauling sequences.
Artist: Obada Omari
Instagram: @obada_omari
Description: We all have different personalities, one with our family, one with friends other for love partners and so on ...
its depends even on the mood you have that day. Presenting this idea as I coloured a mask every day for 9 days and took pictures of each one and put it *All In One".
Artist: Core Sway
Instagram : @coresway
Description: Core Sway originated from me wanting to create a graff / street art name for myself rather than just be adam jacobs artist which I was previously as were my website and all social media accounts. So I renamed myself and created a new signature too. It was hard coming p with the name but it actually stems from the name of the road from my hometown in Essex which is coresway. I also made a point of trying to unify my all of my work under this alias through themes and techniques, especially using repurposed material including newspaper, magazines, polaroids, stickers and card along with more unusual items such as drum skins.
Artist: Georgia Dovey
Instagram : @era.vile
Description: This piece shows my alter ego in which I constructed myself, I am wearing a mask made of fragments of my own face altering myself into someone else that looks like me but is not me.
Artist: Andrew Hornett
Instagram: @andyhornett - @ahnorf
Description: The idea was to enter this space armed with only my self, my camera/phone, and create with whatever I found in there. The only real obstacle I faced was overcoming my own fear of appearing on camera, hence Norf, a character who'd been swimming around my mind for a number of years, finally becoming corporeal. I found that the addition of Norf into my documentation, rather than simply the artist smiling next to their work, engendered a new depth to my own practice that I am continuing to pursue.
Artist: Romulo Avi
Instagram: @avi.art
Website: romuloavi.com
Description: "Dreamer", 60x80cm, oil on board. In this self-portrait, I examine the relationship between the ego and the Self, drawing on both Jungian and Hermetical ideas. Specifically, I explore how these two schools of thought conceive of the connection between the conscious self and the unconscious, and how this connection can be illuminated through dreaming. The process of making is one of controlled risk-taking, allowing an image to emerge without preconceived notions.
Artist: Fabio Mandòl
Instagram: @fabiomandol
Description: When I was a child I was suffering of stomach aches, because of my anxiety, and usually they used to happen during the night. Sometimes, when they occurred and I was still sleep, I used to dream about military generals that were inside me around a meeting table, and that they had to decide whether i should vomit or not as I was having a strong nausea.
It is important for me to recreate that set up, in the meantime it was even more essential to create someone that would have been very useful but that it didn't exist: somebody that allowed me and the team in my body to dialogue, an intermediary. The Bellammare is a professionist, its the incarnation of the neutrality and professionality and it has a physical aspect almost identical to mine, but it doesn't have emotions or ideas of its own and it's positivity and welcoming attitude it is just what it is, a professionist.
