“Doubt Me” is a digital artwork stemming from the theme of enduring self-doubt and negative thoughts. It is a GIF that flashes four different styles of the same self-portrait. Throughout my 1st year of university, I spent most days inside my room interning at a visual design agency and attending online classes that are 11 hours behind. I essentially conducted my daily routine in two opposing time zones that led to constant exhaustion, stress, and sometimes anxiety. Every day seems the same, but I always have to figure out different ways to cope with the immobilizing frustration. Each of the portrait styles represents the different ways I've reacted and coped with the situation that I had struggled to accept.

Sketchbook pencil sketch
Maintaining calm and control was what I expected myself to do. A pencil sketch of me reflects the stillness I wished I had throughout the turbulence of stress. The loop begins and ends with this sketch to solidify my intention of enduring all the frustrations I felt, where although I couldn’t always stay composed, I always tried to be.

The Blue Period
I was inspired by Picasso’s Blue Period where he experienced a loss of his close friend and financial struggles that led him to use solemn and cool colours. This style visualizes my hopelessness and pessimism. During some points, I doubted anything would become better and I would continue to be stuck in my room for God knows how long.

Falling Figures
The falling figures in the background and blended into the portrait is an ode to a previous artwork I made with a similar concept called “A Partial Whole”. This style depicts a more frantic and enraging reaction where I often feel overwhelmed by my assignments and work. The difference of the figures’ colours along the background and the portrait signifies my tendency to bottle my frustration up as I feel like there are bigger problems in comparison to mine.

Gorilla
I have an irrational fear of gorillas. When I was a child, roughly the age of 5, I had a nightmare that involved a gorilla staring straight into my eyes from the outside of my house as I peeked through the window. I decided to make the gorilla as the embodiment of the voice of doubt and negativity that’s living in the back of my head. I decreased the size of my portrait in this style to reflect how I feel small when the self-doubts come. The more simplistic line art aims to signify the incoherent blend between my rational mind and self-doubt where in some days become inseparable.