MARIANA FONSECA IB Visual Arts 2016 Lincoln School Costa Rica

The Artist Statement
by Mariana Fonseca

    My artworks were inspired by the theme “loss of innocence”. They try to represent the juxtaposition between a child's naïveté and the world’s corruption. The objective of presenting this collection of artworks is so that people, especially adolescents like me, can relate to the burdens of growing up and getting a bittersweet glimpse of real life. The base of my exposition came from personal experiences that I would have never expected to be a part of my life, and that have certainly shaped who I am today.

    The work of art that represents, in a more specific way, the theme mentioned above is, “Lucky Enough”. This piece uses  the motif of a baby to symbolize the innocence and peaceful concepts present in the early stages of a human life. Meanwhile, the jellyfish represent every problem that a child may have to face when they eventually grow up and are too big to fit in the glass bottle that protected them from the world.

    The artworks that explore the same theme but in a broader way, are those that are related to the skulls. The skulls represent death, a topic that, although an essential part of life, is treated as a taboo by millions of people. The flowers found in the skull’s eye cavities symbolize life, innocence and the simple brightness of being alive. This artworks were inspired by two works of Frida Kahlo: “The Girl with the Death Mask” and “The Bed”. The former one tries to express all those terrible things that were meant to happen to Frida, despite her just being a child. It makes the viewer think about the uncertain future and everything it holds, even when the owner of that fate is just a baby. The latter one expresses how death is something unpredictable that can occur at any minute, especially when it is least expected. My artworks tried to express that theme that relates to the unexpected situation life holds, and the most predictable thing that ends up being the biggest surprise: death.

    The artwork that best represents the concept of death vs. life is the skull that is facing front, which has the flowers looking directly at the public. It is meant to represent that Death is always there, watching us. The second one represents how human ignore death, and the third one symbolizes how death laughs about human’s innocence.

    The photographs of the skulls were my inspiration for the oil paintings. Because of this, I thought it would be interestingly to show them to the public, but with a certain modification, which was the poem written on top of them, called “Al pie de su niño” by Pablo Neruda. It narrates the story about a foot and its trajectory through life. It starts by the foot imagining that it is something magical, such as a fruit, and ends up living a tough life, losing its innocence, and eventually dying. I believe that the poem encompasses the theme I wanted to express through all my artworks in a beautiful, poetic way.

    Finally, the photograph of the woman with the face painted, tries to represent that no matter the age of a person, there is still a certain innocence inside them because they still have not solved the greatest mystery on Earth:death. Also, it was special for me because the woman in it is my mom, and one of the things I fear the most is her death. When I was little I used to cry everyday because I was afraid of her dying suddenly, until I realized she was afraid of dying herself, which made us both, child and woman, posses the same kind of innocence.

    The positions of the artworks are placed so that everything in the middle is delimited by the skulls that are at the extremes. The baby, the “Vieja Inocencia”, and my portrait, are all inside the lines formed by the paintings of the skulls, and the photographs. This is so the viewer can feel that life would not be complete without death, and that it is an essential concept in every human being’s life, such as mine.

 Destined to pt.1 by Mariana Fonseca

Oil on canvas 18 x 24 inches.

Using the photos found at the background of the  poem as a reference, I painted three skulls with oils. The point of the first skull is that death is watching everybody. It is drawn in a way that it looks at the public, representing this ideamentioned before. The artwork was inspired by Frida Kahlo’s artwork, “The Bed”.

Destined to pt.2 by Mariana Fonseca

Oil on canvas 18 x 24 inches.

The last skull is again looking at the public but in a less direct way. The point of this skull is to
express the idea of what a mystery death is, and therefore the position of the skull. Furthermore, the flowers represent the naïlveness that humans never let to go off, regarding the concept of death.

Lucky Enough by Mariana Fonseca

Mixed media on water color paper. 23 x 24 inches

The artwork tries to portray the innocence of a kid that is protected by a bottle while there are

dangers surrounding him. It represents how, with enough luck, the baby is born into a family

where they are going to be protected, until they are too big to fit in the bubble, and so they will

be stung by jellyfish. In other words, they will lose their innocence.

Blending In by Mariana Fonseca

Pen and watercolors. 29 x 18 inches 

This work tries to portray the dangers of life and what makes people lose part of their innocence.  The animals represent dark concepts. I chose to use a crocodile, frogs, and a snake because they are all reptiles that make me extremely uncomfortable. The tree is there because those animals are taking over the innocence of the tree, making it blend with them.

Al pie desde su niño by Mariana Fonseca

Digital photography and handwriting with gold marker. 

24 x 24 inches each panel

This artwork has an special meaning because it has a poem written on it. The poem is about the feet of a child that grows, repressed by the bitter parts of life. The poem talks about a foot that wants to be something magical, unique. Despite its wishes,the foot loses itself completely, as it is explained in the last part of the poem. It just dies, without having accomplished what he wanted and without finding himself. He loses his innocence.

Vieja Inocencia (Old Innocence) by Mariana Fonseca

Photography, 29.5 x 14 inches

The purpose of this piece is to represent that, despite a person’s age, everyone has a certain innocence. The half part of the face painted symbolizes the unknown concept that makes us all be naive: death. I believe death makes us innocent because no matter what we do in life, how bad or clever we are, there is no way to cheat death.

 Fonsi by Mariana Fonseca

oil on canvas. 11 x 14 inches

For my self portrait I used a photo as a reference. My portrait represents my theme, loss
of innocence, because I believe that this last 4 years have been the ones that made me lose
my own innocence, and therefore inspired this exhibition. The name of my artwork is “Fonsi”
because this transition from passing from childhood to adolescence has defined me, just
as my nickname that is now more famous than my original name.