ChesSilhouette

I have no idea what I should call my artwork. I created this artwork for a competition to get a scholarship in particular university. I truly don't know about the university before and when I asked from my friends, I heard that it is good and probably the best university at that city. So I give it a try.

Originally created on A3 paper size but not printed, so I decide to set it as RGB rather than CMYK. I don't really know the reason behind CMYK over RGB when printing but I've tried it before and the quality really shone on CMYK rather than RGB.

The concept was manipulating all of the chess units and creates illusion between the gaps, which is eerily looks like people with hood. The original concept was nowhere near this final result; this idea was come out from nothing. I was bored when using pen tool to make the chess silhouette, so I decided to give it a twist on my original concept by put them side by side then rotate it 180 degree and slam some texts on the artwork. After that, I decided to show it off to my friend about the artwork that I've done when I was bored and they loved it. But when I showed them my original concept, they pick the other artwork (which is this one) over the original concept. I ask them to tell me three things that came out from their mind when they see it. Surprisingly, one of my friends saw a Batman. I was catch on a surprise and I tried to find that Batman that he saw. I found him between the gaps of the Queen and King, I didn’t plan him there before, and it was totally unintentional. So, following my friends’ suggestions about Batman and some suggestions that I asked, I manage to finish this artwork 2 hours before the deadline.

So, I like to share the idea behind this artwork. It might be long and not perfect, but this is the only thing I could think off when doing my artwork. I’m very sorry about my English, it is not my mother language.

What it is about?
It is about life and how we see the world as it is right now. I love the idea of perspective and I’m always in awe. The way we see life is based on our perspective, because we live based on our perceptions. Chess indicates life itself; we always pick side, whether we choose over white side or black side. People indicates that white is holy, peaceful, righteous. While black is the other way around. We tried to survive from life and every obstacles that we need to overcome. They always tried to take us down but we always fight back. This visualizes how chess played. White king’s army tried to take down the black king, while black king’s army also wants to take down the white king. We plan our life as carefully as possible; at least that’s how my life has been over the years. But when start our plan, something might not going as planned before and we need to adapt the new situation into our plan. We never know what could possibly happen with our plan. Just like chess, we plan our first move, second move, third move and so on. But at some point, everything will not go as planned and we need to adapt or we lose the game.

Black and white itself is the color of chess. They are separable and distinguish from each other, it’s very clear for any people to see and differentiate which one is black and which one is white. And perspective comes from the illusions of people in the hood, they’re anonymous. They stand up, waiting for the right time to come. Just like every temptation, they will keep coming and coming. Perspective makes us question about your perception, which one is intended to be displayed, the silhouette or the chess? You’re the one who can decide your own mind.

I’ll take any suggestions or critiques on this artwork, whether it is my idea or how I execute it. When I was working, I tend to execute it as detailed as I could before submitting and I might miss some points or details.