Nika

My artwork i depicts the dayroom from the story “ one flew over the cuckoo’s” nest by ken Kesey and serves as a visual representation for most of the intricate dynamics the characters present in the story through the i use of symbolism and other visual elements such as color, i texture, and style to convey the diversity along with the connection i they all share with the fog and its effect on their mental as well as the broader perspective on life the book offers.

(link to picture) ———> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1g5k9AVycvwIxK0U-57AahXpFaLwvy1q_19Axlmq9pcA/edit?usp=sharing

There are 4 main pieces in this depiction with each one digging deeper into the fundamentals of the psych ward. The first is McMurphy i standing with i an empty emotionless i stare by himself with a hammer and bandaids in hand, a shadow in the shape of a cross and faint wings behind him. The cross represents the parallel between mcmurphy and Jesus the book creates with him coming into the ward, creating a following and eventually sacrificing himself for them on the electric table i which is in the shape of a cross. The wings come from his death and him becoming “the one who flew over the cuckoo’s nest”, the hammer and bandaids represent him fixing the “couch” which brings us to the next i piece which is the sofa from i the dayroom. The sofa is something i that all the patients of the ward share and have in common making it a sort of intersection of similarity for all the patients leading me on to recreate it as all of the psych patients as one. The sofa is worn down and covered in rips and tears from side to i side and is covered in bandaids with empty white eyes going across its back. The 3rd piece. To the right of the sofa is the big nurse holding scissors, and a bubble blower with a dense, dark, foggy shadow beneath her. The last piece is behind the sofa and is of patients of the ward stuck inside their own little bubble world. As these four pieces intertwine a form of visual storytelling emerges inviting viewers to contemplate the meaning of the layered dynamics the psych ward and book have to offer.

Reflection i: After completing this artwork there are a handful of things I would change mostly about Mcmurphy. The main one is using the jesus as the parallel for him, while it does align with his story and the character a much better candidate would be “the sun god nika” or “freedom fighter nika” As you may expect nika is a freedom fighter and shares a bit of similarities with mcmurphy such as even as going as far as to almost directly quote him with the line “when you lose your laugh you lose your footing” Another aspect i would change is instead of bubbles holding in the patients in the background I would instead create a light gray haze effect around them to represent the fog with varying intensity.