For this Elective term, I’ve decided to take a class called If These Walls Could Talk. This course lets us explore the history of art, more specifically murals, and we even get the opportunity to create our own artwork. For the first unit of this course we looked at the murals from different time periods including Prehistory, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greek and the Renaissance. For the first Action Project, we were assigned to sketch a mural idea that addresses the needs of a neighborhood. I chose to learn more about Pilsen.There are already so many magical murals in Pilsen and I wanted to create a mural to be a part of the magic. My mural focuses on the need of safety in the Pilsen community. I had a hard time coming up with a drawing that was going to reflect my ideas, so it took me awhile to just sketch everything out. Even though it took me awhile, I’m still proud at how it came out. Thanks to this project and unit, I now have a better understanding as to why murals are made. I hope you enjoy my sketch and artist statement below!
RD
11/15
I'm watching you "11x14"
Pencil on paper
Pilsen is a very artsy community with a predominantly Latino population. It is considered an up- and-coming neighborhood in Chicago, which can disguise the fact that the neighborhood is still considered dangerous. During the 1980s, Pilsen was considered one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the United States, and although that is no longer the case, crime still lingers around. For that reason, I believe that Pilsen must focus on the safety of their residents, especially because for the many families that call the neighborhood their home.
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| RD, I'm watching you. 2016 |
To represent the need for safety in my image, I drew a pair of eyes that belong to a police officer to watch over the neighborhood. In the police officer’s eyes, the viewer can see what the eyes are watching over. I used the fisheye perspective to show the viewer what the officer is looking at when watching over the community. Perspective was used a lot by Italian painters during the Renaissance to give a more realistic view on their artwork. In the left eye there is a gangbanger destroying the Welcome to Pilsen sign. He’s scratching out the word, Pilsen, and writing Chiraq over it, a term used to describe the war zone that’s going on in Chicago. In the right eye there’s something very different going on. I drew a young child with his or her family and they are thanking the the officer for protecting them. I drew small, basic figures for this one, and I overlapped them to show some sort of movement, just like they did in the pre-historic cave paintings.
I used bright colors in the right eye to show the happiness that many families have in Pilsen, and I used darker colors in the left eye to show off the darker incidents that are going on. As a way to bring tribute to the country and to the large Mexican population, the background has the colors of the Mexican flag. My wish is that my mural be placed on a tall building where everyone can see it. I want my mural to open the eyes of the citizens of Chicago. I want them to see what is actually going on in our city. A beautiful neighborhood should not have to deal with ugly behavior. My hope would also be for the people committing these crimes to look at my mural and think about the young, innocent lives that they may affect if they continue to carry out these on doing their senseless acts. I want the residents of Pilsen to feel secure, because that one pair of eyes represents the many other police officers that are doing their job well, and the ones making sure that they are all safe.
