Portraits of Self
Haydeé Garrote Gonzalez-Peña
Photography and Related Media
About this Item
- Title
- Portraits of Self
- Contributor Names
-
Garrote Gonzalez-Peña, Haydeé (Creator, Photographer)
-
Wade, Allison (Thesis advisor)
-
Farwell, Brad (Thesis advisor)
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Wynne, Jessica, 1972- (Thesis advisor)
- Date
- 2026
- Summary/Artist Statement
-
When was five years old, my parents brought my sister and I to Canada from Cuba, followed by many more moves every few years. I formed a pattern of introducing myself, getting to know people, saying goodbye, then doing it all over again. This cycle of yearning for connection and understanding has manifested itself into my artistic practice. I feel compelled to create artwork through performance, photography, film, fashion, and music in order to reconcile with the fragmented nature of identity and interpersonal relationships.
My life and artistic practice have been a constant rejection of being put into a box. Despite society's desire to categorize, I believe humans contain multitudes and should not be forced to dilute themselves in order to succeed. As an immigrant, a new girl, a performer, a young woman finding herself, I have held onto the art of transformation as a way to portray the millions of identities that live inside me. My hope is that as I become more empowered with this truth, so will the audience with their own infiniteness.
'Portraits of Self' is a series of self portraits depicting dramatizations of cinematic and cultural archetypes to represent the fragmented nature of personal identity. Swiss psychologist Carl G. Jung wrote that "our personalities divide themselves into these characters to play out the drama of our lives". Creating this work will allow me to reconcile with the fact that I am not just one thing, but a sum of all parts. Simultaneously, it will highlight the inherent connectivity between humans, as archetypes symbolize the "collective unconscious" of the human race.
Shot in studio and with close attention to hair, makeup, and styling, each character archetype represents a different facet of the human condition, within the context of my life story and personal experience. The artist does not attempt to hide herself in these characters - showing tattoos, piercings, and other adornments as another representation of the self. - Artist Statement:
- Haydeé Garrote is a multi-disciplinary artist with a BFA in Photography and Related Media and a Minor in Film Studies from FIT. Her artistic practice mirrors her lifelong rejection of being put in a box, expressing her feelings about fragmented identity and human connectedness through storytelling mediums like Acting, Photography, and Filmmaking. As a Cuban immigrant who constantly had to reintroduce and reinvent herself in new places, Haydeé has held onto the art of transformation as a means to portray the infinite multitudes contained within her. In her ongoing series of archetypal self portraits shown at The Museum at FIT in May 2026, she embraces this multiplicity, presenting herself as parts of a whole in the drama of her life.
- Medium
- Adobe Photoshop
- Course/Degree Information
- Program/Degree: Photography and Related Media BFA
- Course: PH 494 Senior Photography Seminar II
- Semester: Spring 2026, Semester 8
- Professor: Allison Wade, Brad Farwell, Jessica Wynne
- Rights
- In Copyright
- The copyright for this work is held by its author/creator(s). Usage of this material beyond what is permitted by copyright law must first be cleared with the rights-holder(s). This work has been made available online by the Fashion Institute of Technology Gladys Marcus Library strictly for research and educational purposes. If you are the copyright holder for this work and have any objections to this work being made available online, please notify us immediately at [email protected].
- Identifier
- FIT Repository ID: ph_000319
Citation
Garrote Gonzalez-Peña, H. (2026). Portraits of Self. FIT Institutional Repository. https://institutionalrepository.fitnyc.edu/item/676445
Garrote Gonzalez-Peña, Haydeé. Portraits of Self. 2026. FIT Institutional Repository, https://institutionalrepository.fitnyc.edu/item/676445
Garrote Gonzalez-Peña, Haydeé. "Portraits of Self." FIT Institutional Repository, 2026. https://institutionalrepository.fitnyc.edu/item/676445