What is Confidence?

Growing up as a pretty shy person, I didn’t really understand what it meant to be confident. Luckily, art has helped me challenge myself to express myself and find pride in who I am and what I do.

In this piece, I wanted to challenge what we define as confidence and question what it really is.

• What does confidence look like?

• Is confidence purely visual?

• Can you be confident without “looking” confident?

In my final piece for my figuration drawing class, I decided to investigate these questions by depicting two figures in the same setting but in different seated positions.

With the blank surrounding, both figures are isolated in their own spaces to show how no one else is influencing their confidence. Additionally, the blank background allows you to directly compare the figures.

The figure on the left physically takes up more space on the chair, and the figure on the right looks constrained and limited to the boundaries of the armrest. The figure on the left appears more confident because her full face is revealed, and her body extends past the shape of the chair. What I want to pick at is that this confidence could possibly be a false image or representation of true confidence.

In reality, the figure on the right could be more confident deep down but does not feel the need to outwardly show it.

Sometimes we have days or periods in our life where we look more confident. There are days or periods in our lives where we actually feel more confident, too.

So, I want to point out how you often times can’t tell just based on appearance if someone truly is confident. I also want to point out that confidence is fluid, but it is also layered.

Given that confidence changes and shifts, I still question, what is it?