Social identity is a work that I undertook near the end of 1998. This work emphasizes the disorientating effects of being sucked into or thrown out of social structures. I have represented here a figure in suspension caught up in this process of identification. The two panels either side of the central figure are a representation of the social divide. The left side as you look at the work is slightly lighter in tone than that of the right and the subject matter is treated differently, this is to express the polarities in life established by the opposing fractions in society. The two panels are separated by an empty space in which the identity of the individual is formed. I treated the painting of the two panels as if the image was faded away or washed out, ghost like images that haunt a soul but cannot be touched. The outstretched arms of the central figure is an expression of his willingness to embrace all sides of the divide, but his comportment can also be understood to express a dispersion of his proper identity. The forging of caricature is formed in the ensuing battle of acceptance or rejection. Being born into personal identity while at the same time not letting the will submit to the attractive formulas of constructed reflection is the ground in which independence makes its stand. No man holds the absolute truth if not within the walls of his own hart The subject of this work is to portray this situation as an ongoing process associated to the establishment of personal identity.
