Polaroid Portraits: Psyche’s Cosmic Captures
Cindy Furukawa
April 29th, 2024
Major: Mechanical Engineering
Genre/Medium: Painting, Canvas
About the work: “Polaroid Portraits: Psyche’s Cosmic Captures,” is a work designed to mimic a polaroid snapshot featuring the goddess Psyche in front of the asteroid. The camera is set to focus primarily on the goddess, resulting in intentionally softened details of the asteroid for a subtly blurred out background. The materials that were used were solely acrylic paint, with many of the colors mixed. My main goal was to create an artwork that didn’t overly emphasize adding intricate details across the whole piece but instead shifted the focus on specific parts of the painting. For this reason, I decided to add highlights to Psyche’s wavy, long hair, which reflects the colors of the Psyche mission’s logo. This addition provides a vibrant contrast of colors against the shimmery dark background. To enhance texture, small butterfly details were added into her hair using cutouts of holographic cellophane film.