Curatorial Rationale

When it comes to my artworks, my goal is to transport the viewer into a world filled with imaginative stories which contain a connected mystery. With each artwork a new scene is revealed about the world in which the creatures I create inhabit. To connect each artwork with one other I left details from both previous on the newer works that I created. I arranged them like this as a way for viewers to dissect each artwork and see how one connects with another just as how I and many viewers dissect TV shows trying to figure details revealing future scenes to come. This connectivity stems from a love of TV and how shows an homage in the background to scenes that relate to previous or future events to come in the canon world. In doing so all my works have homaged the rest of my artworks in the forms of shapes, characters, and colors. With the focus of the story being on one character who represents me and the experiences faced in life.

In expanding the world within my artworks the creatures displayed play a vital role in the canon which expands by each new character and location. This expansion adds new details but repeats others which the viewer can identify and understand it all is in the same canon. The inspiration for each of my characters comes from a passion for three aspects: cryptozoology, graphic novels, and anime. Wendigo shows an example of cryptozoology by recreating my own interpretation of the creature utilizing the legend as the basis of its design, while Foreshadowing, Confrontation and Future employ both an anime and graphic novel aesthetic. The many legends and folklore that cryptozoology contains is my inspiration, taking cryptids in those tales and remaking them in my own interpretation of the creature with their own representation of who they are, this is seen in Foreshadowing and Hunters. My passion for graphic novels and anime have also influenced my style of art making with Takashi Murakami’s Superflat style, which can be seen in Future, REsurgence and Hunters. This inspired my usage of long exaggerated body proportions and vibrant color contrast, which can be seen in Wendigo and Hunters by exaggerated body proportions of the Wendigo and the pair of hunters. This style allows me to represent both the emotions and implications each character has on the whole of the artwork.

Of all the characters in my artworks the one to focus on is the white skulled Wendigo as the canon behind all the artworks connects back to him the experiences and hardships faced. This I depict in Wendigo artwork with the snowy background and the Wendigo hiding itself from full view scared to be seen but carrying to protect those weaker than it. The Wendigo is the main focus recurring multiple times but like many TV shows they have secondary characters which for me the Moth and her respective work Foreshadowing filled this role. Her character for me is the counterpart to the Wendigo taking the legend of the Mothman and reinventing it into a character who symbolizes unforeseen future showing up in with the Wendigo as a future that can be beautiful but uncertain just as her design shows. This recurrence of character allows for the viewer to see that my artworks connect to one other displaying glimpses of a larger connected canon where all these creature and event displayed are unraveling a story.

In doing so when the viewer arrives, what they see first is REsurgence with the following order of artworks being the established canon; Resurgence, Rebirth, Wendigo, Foreshadowing, Confrontation, Hunters, Elder, and Future. I arrange their placement in a circular pattern in order to display the chronological order of each event with Future being the end and REsurgence as the beginning. The canon story displayed has each event led to the next having details from the previous one displayed in the following artwork with leaps of time in between. I did this so as the viewer moves from artwork to artwork they can dissect and piece together the story of the Wendigo and ultimately form their own interpretation of events.

Contact the artist at ajsoriano91@gmail.com