Marie D.

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Artist Statement

Title: Pieces of You

My name is Marie A. Daniels and I am third year student at the Lewis & Clark Graduate School of Education’s Art Therapy Program. My internship is at a senior retirement community where we deal with a wide range of diagnoses. My primary focus has been on working with residents who are suffering from neurocognitive decline.

Throughout life we grow and change. Many pieces of who we are evolve and thus capsules of our former selves are formed. Now, imagine for a second that part of who you are comes and goes because you lose touch due to the aspects of an organic brain disorder.

This narrative of self changes dramatically depending on the day and what you have access to. It creates facets of your personality, but not a complete whole. What then are you looking at? This is why I chose to do these layers of a shadow box scene deconstructed into parts made from different textures and paper, and the companion piece that shows the layers combined into a whole.This piece is rooted in Gestalt theory, showing that the sum of the parts tells a story about the whole self.