Animation & Motion Design
Jonathan Wynne
Approval
My piece depicts the existential process of a typical human life, broken down into more simplified formal depictions. In particular, the work focuses on the human desire to endlessly pursue approval, both from ourselves and from others, and how such blind ambition can at times diminish a person’s quality of life.
Using milestone markers, my character’s path and experience becomes more defined and serious as he traverses the predestined course. Fleeting possibilities emerge for him to become truly self-aware and recapture a sense of joy and appreciation for the challenging road he faces. Will he take those opportunities and open himself up to life, or stay closed off and as a result, remain unfulfilled? Only time will tell.
The core of this work rests on the inherent nature of people to lose something of themselves through an over-emphasis on achievement and acquisition, at the expense of all else. Approval, in the end, need not be a detrimental pre-requisite or outside expectation, but can be achieved more readily through the subtle expressions of life which go unnoticed around us all the time, should one have the wisdom and experience to understand them.