PURO VENENO — Illustration

Year — 2018 Client — Espora Collective — Puro Veneno Campaign Category — Illustration / Political Graphics Medium — Ink Drawing & Digital Color Tools — Indian Ink, Adobe Photoshop

Description — Illustration created for the Puro Veneno campaign developed by the Espora collective. The artwork depicts a bottle labeled as poison being shattered by a bullet, releasing a toxic substance that transforms into the figure of Álvaro Uribe Vélez.

The piece functions as a visual metaphor addressing political toxicity and the impact of power within Colombian social and political discourse. As part of the campaign, the illustration contributed to a series of critical graphic works exploring themes of resistance, dissent, and social commentary.

The artwork was initially drawn by hand using Indian ink. After scanning the line work, the illustration was digitally colored and finalized in Photoshop.

I’m reading about visual culture and visual activism. Saturday I had a very inspiring conversation with M. We talked about Huey P. Newton and Stuart Hall. M is growing an image collection based on the ‘original’ Huey P. Newton image. See it here.

It reminded me of something I’d seen in Nicholas Mirzoeff book ‘How To See The World’. Samuel Fosso, an African photographer. And Zanele Muholi also a South African photographer. Zanele Muholi calls herself a visual activist. I find that most interesting, I want to learn more about this and her as an artist.

Read an article on One World. Minna Salami is a black feminist how quoted Chimamanda Adichi. Adichi wrote a book called ‘We Should All Be Feminists’. I watched a Youtube presentation where she talked about this.

About Samuel Fosso;

https://www.moma.org/artists/67095 https://aperture.org/blog/lives-samuel-fosso/

About Zanele Muholi;

https://www.stedelijk.nl/nl/tentoonstellingen/zanele-muholi https://www.instagram.com/muholizanele/

About Minna Salami;

https://www.oneworld.nl/interview/zwart-feminisme-is-als-een-religie-voor-mij/ https://www.msafropolitan.com/sensuous-knowledge

About Chimamanda Adichi;

(ESP)

No existe el amor a primera charla. Be Beauty Full / Nadie tiene sueños eróticos con alguien simpático. Be Beauty Full.

Anuncio de la la cadena de tiendas de venta de productos de belleza Body Bell.

España, 2016. ¡Enviado por una nueva Radiactiva! Gracias :)

(ENG)

There’s no love at first talk. Be Beauty Full / Nobody has erotic dreams with a nice person. Be Beauty Full. 

Advertisement by the spanish chain of cosmetic shops Body Bell.

Radiactivas charlando en el programa Blow Up de Darwinians Radio Bike. España, 2016.

“So what then is visual culture? It has evolved into a form of practice that might be called visual thinking.” (Mirzoeff. 289) Nicholas Mirzoeff describes visual thinking in the novel How to See the World as something we need to engage with in order to understand. It is described as something that is “converged around visual activism” (Mirzoeff. 289)  Visual Activism is the use of creating something visual, using a sense of visual thinking and expressed as something to create change. These changes are forms of such social and political issues, only to name a couple. An example of this would be graffiti where artists like Banksy would create such powerful street art in order to associate and express change in the world. Simply, seeing these issues and seeing the world is not enough. As Mirzoeff states, “The point is to change it.” (Mirzoeff. 298)

WORKS CITED

Last summer I’ve been able to meet one of my biggest heros: Shepard Fairey. He’s one of the most impactful political streetartists, illustrators and visual activists of our time, mostly known for his OBEY campaign.

I’ve first seen his artwork on t-shirts in a skateshop in LA in 2010 and absolutely fell in love with his visuals, till I later realized how political most of his work actually is, and that he mainly does work in the streets. He’s one of the reasons I wanted to become a graphic designer and why I have faith in the impact design can have in our world, and how design can function to make people aware of certain things, because beutiful images make us wanna look at them and absorb them. I always loved his work but now I know he’s also such a great character. Deeply driven to do something meaningful and someone who will never give up, no mather how hard any authorities try to get him down. He will never stop questioning and provoking. A few photos from the mural project “Paint it Black” he and his crew have done in Munich last summer, curated by the organisation Positive Propaganda. I’m grateful I got the chance to document the action. I also did a radio interview with him I’ll post later on my blog. Stay tuned