Self: The Quest for a Personal Identity - Recent Paintings by Albert Dépas
By: Robert Diamond Oct. 04, 2015
In a solo exhibition titled "Self: The Quest for a Personal Identity," Boricua College is proud to present recent paintings from the "Self Series" by Albert Dépas, who said that the works in this exhibit were inspired by the philosopher David Hume, who asserted that "for most people, when they search for a personal identity, all they see is a bundle of perception." Mr. Dépas said that he agrees with Mr. Hume, but, he believes that for those who may not be conscious of the perception of a self, they have an instinctual ability by which they can discover this self. He demonstrates this possibility of such a phenomenon by means of visual depiction. He has drawn from his reading of Erik H. Erikson's Identity and the Life Cycle and Heinz Kohut's The Analysis of the Self, and-along with inspiration from his extensive studies and life experiences-he has attempted to depict aspects of Hume's bundles of perceptions, through which, while moving from one image to the next, the viewer can extract a recognizable element that can congeal into this notion of a personal identity.
Mr. Dépas's full "Self Series" depicts the self in three phases: the conscious, the subconscious and the self-conscious, with each phase having 24 images to represent the hours of the day. For this show, Mr. Dépas is exhibiting four large oil paintings (4' x 6') in the self-conscious phase and a few study pieces of the subconscious phase. Albert Dépas is a Haitian-American, born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. He is a poet and visual artist experienced in the diverse disciplines of visual media. He has been trained in the traditional methods of the fine arts: drawing, painting, sculpture, and photography, as well as in graphic design, architecture, and digital media for graphic and web design. His training began with his father, Spencer Dépas, a noted Haitian artist. After graduating from Brooklyn's John Jay High School, Mr. Dépas attended the City College of New York, where he studied fine arts and architecture. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Visual Studies from The New School for Public Engagement (New York City) and a Master's degree in International Education from New York University (NYU).Videos