Katie Paglialunga_Synesthesia Home Base

Katie Paglialunga

3rd Year, Art Education Major

Synesthesia Home Base
Oil on Canvas
36 inches x 48 inches
2014

Synesthesia Home Base is a narrative painting inspired by my oldest and dearest friend and the idea of “home.” When our class decided on a theme of home for our end of term exhibition I did not have a clear grasp on the identity of “my home”. I questioned if home was my apartment, if it was my childhood house, if it was a possession I owned or if it was a memory. As I pondered for an idea of something that was real my dearest childhood friend messaged me with so much enthusiasm, to commission me for a painting. I thought to myself, “This was it! This is the painting that will represent home for me, and how coincidental is the timing?” My friend Carly has been in my life for over a decade. We attended school together and our parents lived 10 houses down from each other. When we were younger there were many years we were inseparable, and I am sure we still would be today if we lived in the same province.

Carly and I both possess a neurological condition called synesthesia. The definition of “synesthesia is a neurological phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive” (Wikipedia). In both our cases, we see words, letters, numbers and even some sounds in colours.

In my painting Synesthesia Home Base, I have drawn this colourful glob emerging and forming from the humanoids figure’s third eye, representing our bond with synesthesia. Synesthesia Home Base expresses my feelings of how I view our relationship, as well as how I view myself and her, separately. The piece is bright, imaginative, childlike, personal, surreal and strange to help the viewer question and create their own narratives about the self in connection to others.

Reference: Synesthesia . Wikipedia. Retrieved March 20, 2015, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia