Lara D'Orria

Lara D’Orria

‘Corporeal’

Drawing

Graphite Pencil on A4 and A2 paper

3 A2 and 5 A4 Pieces

My work involves varying portraits of both the living and decaying, contrasting against each other in haunting monochromatic tones. My own reference images and planning melded skeletal and circulatory features with typical portraiture to contrast form and feature through the macabre. The use of graphite pencils allows for an intricate and detailed representation of our biological components, along with the mix of the human and flora in differing stages of decay, thus delivering a multi-faceted detailed portrayal of the brevity of all things.

This work chooses to portray death itself through the temporal physicality of the human body, contrasting silks and flesh with that of bone and veins. The title itself acknowledges our ‘corporeal’ state, with the feminine body often representing life and fertility instead portraying death and aridity. The inclusion of floral imagery symbolises that much like fruit and flowers, our prosperity and beauty will inevitably decay. The work rejects the common spiritual and transcendent perception of death instead detailing our departure as biological and inescapable.

Influencing artists: Nunzio Paci, Rebecca Louise Law