Each year, on 15 April, UNESCO’s World Art Day celebrations help reinforce the links between artistic creations and society. These celebrations encourage greater awareness of the diversity of artistic expressions and highlight the contribution of artists to sustainable development. This is also an occasion to shine a light on arts education in schools, as sharing cultures is a gateway to inclusive and equitable education.
“Bringing people together, inspiring, soothing and sharing: these are the powers of art, the importance of which has been made emphatically obvious during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. With hundreds of thousands of people directly affected by the virus and billions more either in lockdown or battling the pandemic on the front lines, this World Art Day is a timely reminder that art has the power to unite and connect in times of crisis.” – Audrey Azoulay, Director General of UNESCO
Today more than ever, we leave the floor to an artist who inspired us! Happy World Art Day ?
Natalia Ramos is a visual artist from Guadalajara, México. She studied visual communication and art direction. Natalia is especially interested in abstraction and decontextualization of objects and materials, proposing new and atypical compositions. For Natalia, composition is crucial to change the perspective of any object and the visual values of the viewer. Natalia communicates these ideas through “still lifes” of people, objects, and sculptures. The act of inhabiting a space and our relationship with objects is a constant in her work. Today we have the opportunity for Natalia to tell us more about her trajectory.
This series of photographs represent the human body through rudimentary materials which create abstract human skeletons. These works include hints of Mexican Pre-Hispanic art styles while still simulating the authentic Mexican ability to improvise with a unique perspective. In this case, the work displays a vision to create bodies from objects.
Botana (Snack) is a compilation of still lifes that portray ingredients found in the San Juan Market, one of the oldest and most traditional markets in Mexico City. It is known for being a market where you can find Pre-Hispanic and exotic ingredients such as crocodile meat and countless varieties of insects.
This series plays with balance, equilibrium, and the idea of highlighting the beauty and simplicity of the ordinary. The monochromatic backgrounds are the central component of each still, creating a feeling of flatness that I have been exploring in my current work. I like the simplicity and immediacy the flatness can achieve. I am attracted to its anti-sophistication.
Jardín (Garden) is a group of nature abstractions. They are drawings translated to sculptures through a process of fragmentation of reality, with the will of reducing the bodies to a synthesis of icons. The futuristic flowers, made of steel, ceramic, and ostrich eggs, break with the rigid aspect of the steel – a hard, stable, and rigid material. In this case, the steel creates subtle and organic lines simulating the movement of plants. It is about finding certain erotism in a material made for industrial purposes.
The ceramics and porcelains are the aspirations for corporeality of the flat world. As they are assembled, the sculptures emerge to inhabit a space. Certain shapes are represented as close proximities to reality, while others break and disarticulate the familiar to let the audience perceive it from a new, unknown direction. The materials used for these pieces are porcelain with smoke, soil from Zacatecas, clay from Tapalpa, and high-temperature paste. The lines go round and round to provide corporeality to flat fragments.
In the past year, I have been focusing on creating illustrations specifically for the editorial market, either newspapers or books. I feel very comfortable in this field because I am interested in the relationship that is developed between a written piece and a visual piece. I believe that the message gains much more strength when the viewer has the freedom to make subjective and unique connections between both parts.
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