OZ
DANIELA
Daniela Ontaneda
Corrupted Innocence
Digital Collage
45cm x 45cm
Growing up is hard as it is, being forced to grow up, that’s the real struggle. In this piece, a manipulated photo of me as a three-year-old, I wanted to transmit how I took my innocence for granted. How as a child, when all was right with the world, at least with my world, my sense of place was established in me— wherever my family and friends were, there I needed to be. But as life happened, still a child, forced to grow up, my innocence corrupted, I realized it wasn’t that simple anymore; that lens through which I once clearly saw my sense of place in this world, got dirty and broke. The cigarette and the smoke my body dissolves in are a metaphor for all things consuming and intoxicating my innocence and childhood and consequently, that sense of place I once had.
Daniela Ontaneda
Peel Off the Mask
Photography
20cm x 30cm
We, people, especially teenagers, although not limited to any age group, tend to wear a mask in order to fit in. We tend to act like someone else, like someone we’re not, how we think others want or expect us to be. The peeling skin effect represents the mask we tend to wear for others’ sake. I wanted to portray throughout this photograph how we’ll never be satisfied with ourselves if we keep on trying to be someone we’re not. The more we wear the mask, the more we lose ourselves.