My sculpture "the flow of our mentality" is an abstract sculpture depicting the relation between optimism and pessimism Each of these shapes is supposed to represent optimism and pessimism. The shape at the top is brightly coloured, using rainbow colours and is created of loose organic round shapes swirling upwards and inwards. The bottom shape which represents pessimism in made from cardboard cut-outs and rearrange into messy a jagged arch, it serves as a complete juxtaposition from the top half of the sculpture. Its geometric, angular, and is created from various values of black gray and white.

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Creating this sculpture, I feel that I incorporated a lot of elements and principles, more so than I usually do. The main principles in this artwork are movement, contrast, balance and harmony. I focused on showing movement and harmony through the shapes. As we were instructed, my sculpture is completely made of paper, I mainly used cardboard to create the base and the lower arch, I used cardstock paper in various colours in the top arch, along with the use of aluminum foil to wrap the base and create an even metallic I used scissors to cut the cardboard into shapes and then I painted them with my chosen colour palette

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Creating this artwork, I wanted to convey the message of optimism and pessimism, and the way that both go hand in hand in creating a balanced and harmonious world, a concept inspired by ying and yang. I wanted to be able to show the message behind my artwork whilst still being able to capture the essence of abstract sculpture. I focused more on how each topic felt to me rather than what they would traditionally look like. For optimism I used bright vivid colours, I wanted to show the freedom and happiness that comes with looking at life on the good side of things. For pessimism, I used values to show the hesitation and anxiety one experiences when seeing the world in black and white. The darker pieces of cardboard represent the moments where you truly feel like there’s no positive side, where you feel like you're trapped in darkness, the lighter pieces show the hints of hope where things might go well, but then quickly falling back into more negative thoughts.

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I made this a hanging sculpture because I wanted this to emulate the "glass half full, glass half empty" that usually depicts these topics. I place optimism on top and pessimism on the bottom, I hoped that when a person viewed this sculpture, they would be able to not only see the initial shape but be able to explore different viewpoints.

 This was definitely the most challenging assignment for me, as I had never worked with abstract art or paper sculpture. I struggled a lot with trying to convey my idea while at the same time keeping it with an abstract theme and being able to replicate that idea using paper. Although I struggled initially, it was fun being able to try something new and really being able to use art to express and interpret how I feel instead of having it look traditionally good or accurate. Reflecting back, I’m still not sure about how I feel with my finished product, it's very different from what I’ve done before, and I feel mixed emotions with it. Overall, I’m proud of myself for trying something new, and maybe successfully being able to display a message without clearly having a specific objective. I hope to be able to have another attempt at abstract sculptures in future and be able to utilize the techniques I learnt during this unit