Elena Cortez-Neavel

Elena, do you know the work of Jose Guadalupe Posada and his calaveras?

ELENA'S PROPOSAL
Theme: Sickness and Death

Focusing on the human figure over the past few months in drawing has made me come to realize my fascination with the often hidden aspect of the human figure: the skeleton. I find it exciting that, in drawings, skeletons can be manipulated to show as wide a range of gestures and emotions as a full human figure. For this reason, I think it would be interesting to display a human skeleton in a way that contradicts the usual perception of bones as symbolizing the dark themes of sickness and death. I will portray the skeleton in a whimsical and energetic context so as to evoke an unusual and unexpected response. Additionally, I think it is interesting that people so readily believe death to be an evil part of life that should be avoided for as long as possible. For this reason, I would also like my work to offer an alternative to such beliefs. Natural death should not be something to be feared or delayed; it should instead be celebrated as a beautiful, important, and necessary experience.

Materials

I intend to use inkwash and pen for both the background and the subject. I will use a wide range of colors with black ink for emphasis and outlines. I will work on plain white 2’x3’ paper. I will refer to classroom drawings of skeletons as well as the skeleton models themselves. I will also photocopy old skeleton drawings, resize them, and use duplicates to create patterns in my background.

Artist Inspiration

Shahzia Sikander- Her work most strongly relates to the emotional response I wish to evoke through my own piece. She uses light splashes of inkwash to create form in her drawing as well as dark solid outlines and figures for contrast. Her works are very whimsical and abstract but not so cluttered as to be confusing or too overwhelming to look at. I would also like to incorporate her wonderful sense of color into my work.

Egon Schiele- I enjoy his line work, specifically the way he creates depth with differing thicknesses. Though his drawings are not photo-realistic, they have a very believable quality to them that I hope to emulate in the subject of my piece.

Frida Kahlo- Many of Kahlo’s works are self-portraits painted in the same style. Her portraits are often of herself from the shoulders up and they are usually centered on the page with the negative space containing objects and animals that symbolize important aspects of her culture, class, and personality. Her use of color strongly represents Mexican art of her time, and because my subject matter reminds me very much of traditional Mexican Dia de los Muertos art, I would like to incorporate her color schemes into my work.

Hannah Hoch- Her collages, though complicated and random, are aesthetically pleasing. This is a quality I hope to imitate in my own background which will be a collage of printed pictures as well as ink drawings.