I tend to take creative inspiration from nature. For a while, I got really into drawing living subjects, but found myself gravitating towards animals more than people. They've become a common motif in many of my pieces. When I drew human faces, they were often an unfamiliar Frankenstein of reference images. Sometimes I drew friends, but usually I would use stock photos as reference for facial features, body positions, angles, and expressions-- a mixture of multiple bodies making nobody in particular. Humans are biologically wired to connect with other human faces, but the idea that these people I drew didnt actually exist honestly made me feel a bit distant from what I was creating.
The major psychological function exclusive to humans (as far as we know) is "subject displacement". Displacement is the capability to communicate about objects and ideas that are not directly spatially or temporally present. It gives humans imagination: the ability to make things up and to have a more individualized perspective. So, because most other animals don’t have the cognitive function of "displacement", I can assume they’re just focusing on what's right in front of them. When I'm the artist, I can create whatever that is. Therefore, I become more immersed in the worlds I imagine when I draw animals.
After a while, I got bored of always drawing the same backgrounds over and over. I loved the mountains, the trees, and the clouds, but I initially felt restricted by my subject matter to never venture beyond their realm. It wasn’t until my friend made a casual suggestion that my eyes were opened to surrealism. When asked for ideas about what to draw, she said, “You should draw a monkey underwater wearing a space helmet!” And so I did. I fell in love with seeing the intuitive functioning of an animal juxtaposed against a surreal or incomprehensible setting. It felt very naturally unnatural. I’ve considered myself a surrealist artist ever since!
