This is a Scary Self-Portrait

I've always been fascinated with the idea of a tortured artist. I have never been one until this project. I like to use art as a way to escape my problems and trials, a way to forget the world that I live in. For this project, we had to do a cubism piece. I decided to do a self portrait inspired by Picasso's later cubism works and by African tribal masks. I channeled all of my hate, sadness, loneliness, and creepiness into this piece, and this is what I came up with:

My class did not respond well to this piece. But what do you expect from a bunch of Mormon's who try their best to make the best of any situation? There were several comments about how dark it is and how creepy the red eye is. All my teacher had to say about it was that it had fantastic technical skill. I guess that is a good thing, but I was expecting so much more out of everyone. Through this piece, I realized a lot about myself. It turns out that I really like making people feel uncomfortable with my art. I enjoyed seeing my classmates squirm when they looked at this piece, and I liked it when my teacher stammered until all he could say was that I used great technical skill. Maybe that is why artist do the things that they do, not because they are tortured artists, but because they enjoy torturing the viewer. 

P.S. This is made with charcoal and chalk pastel on Stonehenge paper.