Topic: crimes in Mexico
Drawing by Elizabeth Sandoval
Elizabeth Sandavol is a student at HSPVA that uses art therapy to
express the troubles that she's having with the crimes happening in
her hometown, Mexico. “As a little kid, before age 8, I wasn't aware
of the growing crime activities in Mexico. But now that I'm a teenager
I have to watch the news and hear the stories of 40 people getting
killed a week. This constantly causes great stress and worry because
all my family lives there. I chose to use thick brushstrokes of
acrylic paint because not only is that the texture of the walls I
remember, but also I wanted to portray a type of roughness or even
brutality that I now associate with those same places that used to be
vivid and safe. I also chose to add red dots to symbolize the drops of
blood lost every day in Mexico because of the violence. When I put my
memories and feelings of the Mexico on paper, I feel as though a heavy
burden is lifted. It's as though my journal/painting surface is
listening to me, like a friend," said Sandoval.
What else do you see in this beautiful artwork?
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| Vecindad by Elizabeth Sandoval |
I know what you are going through and what you were trying to achieve with this painting. While I was at Mexico last summer, one of my cousins was kidnapped and found raped and murdered with a bullet on the head. My grandma cried and cried on my shoulder. Her shop was burned down to ashes because people envied what she had. There is a lot of terrible things happening but things will get better, I've been hoping that for a while now.
ReplyDeleteI hope you're right Jose. Mexico had it's beautiful peaceful days once in the past. I wish we could go back to that. I really wish the non-sense violence to innocent people could stop. These senseless killings are making Mexico look like a terrible place to live in. When it was less violent, and tolerable to live in, it was wonderful and I created many good memories. I'm sorry for your loss, and the story you tell really impacts me because I never imagined this would happen to someone I went to school with. Stories like yours makes my art come to life.
Delete-Liz
I think it's great that you can find comfort in your art and that you can express your feelings beautifully through it.
ReplyDeleteI also noticed that you can also do it through words.
Not only you can express you pain and worries through your work, but you are giving a voice to your people in Mexico. A voice that will last forever in your paintings.
It is a very beautiful painting by the way!
Thank you! I guess you could say that. However, although I was born in Mexico and all, I've spent most of my growing up in the US. This is why I don't consider my art to be the voice of Mexicans. On the other hand, I consider my art the voice of the Mexicans who leave Mexico to escape the intolerable violence.
DeleteI think painting is a great way to express one's self or more specifically the thoughts that are rambling around their mind. I love how this artist used thick brushstrokes to portray the texture of the walls which she once remembers to be a safe and secure place. She added meanings to the red dots that symbolized her fear of violence through the death of her people. It's understandable that a place where you once felt safe in is now a place that you now fear the most. What I also see in this painting is something on top of the chair which reminds me of a cage. It reminds me of the feeling of being trap. Then beneath it is a cast of the shadow of this object which to me feels like darkness. For some reason when I look at this it just makes me feel sad. The presences of a cage will a black age makes me feel alone.
ReplyDelete