Oaxacan Wood Carving, Folk Art and Alebrijes
I found the whole process from chunk of balsa wood to varnished coyote fascinating and the intricacy and craftsmanship really appealed to me because I love detail and learning about things and processes I have no idea about that impress me and have me in awe of them. After this programme I decided to research more in to Mexican folk art. As a relevant artist, I chose to look further in to Frida Kahlo's works. I chose Kahlo's works because of her surrealist style which I personally like and imitate a bit of in my collages and her use of animal and natural imagery. I discovered that a lot of the recurring animal iconography Kahlo uses is taken from Mexican folk art. I didn't know this previously and a new favourite piece of mine is 'The Frame' pictured below. It stands out to me due to Kahlo's use of glass painting on top of her portrait which I hadn't seen in her other works. It adds a physical texture and the colours, pattern and mirrored birds are all qualities I really like and think work really well together.
I also researched Mexican pattern to learn more about folk art and found that animals are often used in textiles, especially deer. I included some of my favourite examples from the book below:
From this I was inspired to try my own patterned sculptures. In my tutorial Virginia recommended that I should make my choice of patterns personal to me, so with the idea of Alebrijes I worked on a festive reindeer decoration and stylised it around what I like and what is traditional to me. The deer is black with gold with some curled patterning as a reference to traditional Romani Gypsy patterns and caravan decoration as a reference to my heritage as my great-granddad was a settled Gypsy and my mam is currently building a small caravan she inherited to finish from a family member who built them from scratch which is keeping the culture in the present for me. Due to this I have always been interested in that side of my family history and learning more about traditional Gypsy culture. Alongside this style I incorporated my own symbolism, with imagery such as the bluebells and dragonfly being personal references to me. Overall I was quite happy with the finished outcome and the combination of decorative and natural within it but in future I think I would prefer to make my own sculpture for painting on.
