Veronica Spencer: 2015-2016
Final Project, The Oxbow School, Napa, CA
Celebrities often talk about their separate personas on camera in comparison to who they are in their personal lives. The truth is we all have two identities very similarly to the way famous people do. We all like to pretend our lives are movies where we are the starring role. And we have the opportunity to create a character that interests us the most. We like to step back from our lives and look at ourselves and think ‘what will this character do next?’ And we build this idea up in our head so that our goals revolve around living up to our constructed personas. The collection of labels we grab onto, the way we introduce ourselves, the words that finish the sentence beginning with “I am,” come together to curate a role that we chose to become. This persona is called “the ego.” It is an identity, which we use to differentiate and make sense of ourselves.
Veronica Spencer is a fictional character that embodies the ego of a typical white, upper-middleclass, young woman. She is a collection of attributes I have observed within myself as well as in other women and teenagers around me. She is emotional, rebellious, hyper-feminized, materialistic. She is vain, but insecure. She is a “slut” and a “prude.” She is popular, but alone. She is an actress, a writer, a compulsive shopper. Every summer, Veronica goes to Paris to visit her grandparents and comes back to tell stories to her friends of her multiple boyfriends, her mansion and swimming pool, and her crazy parties. In reality, Veronica spends the summer reading and playing dominos with her grandmother. But because she has so intensely thought out the myths of her life, Veronica has come to believe them as true. So much so that it is impossible for her to be honest even within the privacy of her own diary. She is a delusional compulsive liar, an impersonator. This truth is what I desired to reveal in my formal painting of Veronica Spencer.