Zoe Vazquez

For my exhibition, I decided to create a series of portraits that investigate the topic of the human experience.  Every piece portrays different aspects of the human condition: from culture to aging to creating to emotion. My goal when creating these pieces was to answer the question: What does it mean to be human? To me, to be human is to be curious. A strong force that has allowed humanity to evolve into what we are today is the desire to understand ourselves and the world around us. Cave paintings show that even the earliest versions of our species explored the depths of their imagination through storytelling and visions. They not only explored the depths of their imagination but the depths of the universe in order to further expand our species. We can see this through ancient civilization’s fascination with the sky and the stars which have created multiple fields of studies whose job is to understand the ins and outs of our species in relation to our environment. As we discover more about reality, though, we continue to ascend into insignificance, becoming a speck of dust in the vastness of space. Nevertheless, to be human is to be at the center of our own universe and to experience human life in all of its shapes and colors. 

My inspiration for this exhibition came about from my passion for art history, specifically my interest in the Surrealist movement of the 1920s to 1940s. If I could go back in time, without a doubt I would go to Paris during the 1920s. This is because this was a time when young emerging artists, writers, performers, and philosophers moved to Paris from all over Europe to create. Paris has always been a mecca for artists, but especially during the 1920s when these artists were defying the social order and shifting the paradigm of art at that time. All of these artists were creating with intention and their work all aligned with similar values which were conceptualized by André Breton in the Manifesto of Surrealism. Breton coined surrealism as “pure psychic automatism, by which one intends to express verbally the real function of the mind”. Although not aesthetically surrealist, I was inspired by the values and philosophy of the surrealist movement, which is to depict the inner workings of the mind and its connection to our environment and surroundings. 

The artworks I chose to display all represent different aspects of the human experience. Each piece has a unique composition, a color palette, and a variety of different mediums. Although very different from each other, all of my works in the exhibition are portrait paintings. This was done to add coherence to the selected pieces of work and to represent the common theme that they attempt to depict.

With regards to the positioning of my artworks, I chose a simple arrangement that intends on creating harmony and balance between color and size. I wanted my exhibition to feel like you are walking into a museum and looking solely at the artwork and the text. Because of this, I decided to position them in a way that does not distract the viewer from the artwork and that also accentuates the work in a way that the viewer is attracted to it, wants to look at it, and wants to know more about it. My intention with the arrangement was to just let the paintings speak for themselves and to give the viewer the space to fully digest and interpret the painting in their own way.