Hello, my name is Maxim, and I am currently part of the Communication Design MA programme at Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen. I will be focusing my project on issues concerning migration.
Doña Ángela is a grandmother from Michoacán, México and a youtube star worldwide. She has more than two million subscribers and cooks delicious Mexican recipes on her channel weekly. It is a «new frontier for grandma’s cooking in a digital age».
«Watching This Grandma Make Mole Is the Comfort Food I Crave»
Doña Ángela’s video reminded me of two things: my dad’s tomato garden and my mom’s green salsa.
I kept exploring the idea of botanical juxtaposition and its abstraction. I think it’s an interesting way to visualize different contexts merging. I really didn’t like these ones, but I thought it was worth experimenting. I want to come back to this concept eventually.
I wanted to explore the idea of animals with masks as companions or guides for people in transit: when they find themselves from a country to another or from life to death. I went back to the idea of a thread of life and imagined rowan berries like spiritual balls of yarn that stretched like a trail of bread crumbs to find one’s way and stay connected.
I made these illustrations with black and blue ink, color pencils and digital retouch.
These are xoloitzcuintles, which are dogs considered to be spiritual companions for the prehispanic concept of afterlife. I have illustrated a scene where they transport souls across the river to the afterlife, they all wear masks to let you know they are not alive, or in an in-between state.
An anthropologist friend of mine shared this gif, and I was not sure where the masks where from because a lot of Latin American folk art share considerable similarities. I found the source and realized it is part of an Apple Brazil ad made with the iPhone 7’s portrait mode around Carnaval time. It got me thinking of the tradition of masks in Mexico, and how they usually depict demons or spirits. I’ve put masks on characters I’ve illustrated before, where death is involved.
Maxim Zaragoza 