On September 9, 2020, I lost a beloved family member to COVID. It was a painful personal understanding of the magnitude of suffering that currently exists in the world.
Sometimes I fantasize that everything that is happening in the world is only a bad nightmare.
Sometimes my mind needs to escape by revisiting positive experiences from my travels. Most of them are from visits to landscapes that are imprinted on my mind, the feelings of being present in spaces of overwhelming natural beauty.
Nature has always been a very important subject in my work. In my last digital pieces, I have been using those spaces to interpret human predicaments in a graphic form.
In these pieces, I try to be as simple as possible, to let the spectator register the message quickly. These messages are very small grains of sand in this ocean of suffering.
In my recent digital works I use the graphic line as an element to express and simplify concepts, but feel my message is still weak during this horrible time for all those affected by COVID.
Marcela Villaseñor was born in Mexico City and trained there at the National School of Fine Arts before going to Paris on a University of Mexico scholarship. Later she received her MFA from San Diego State University, Her current work uses digital and traditional photographic print media.
Villasenor has been the curator of Cultural Diffusion at the National University of Mexico and instructor of art at educational institutions in Mexico and California US. Her work has been widely exhibited in the United States and internationally.
Marcela's Instagram page.
Marcela's website.
This article is part of the MAHB Arts Community‘s “Covid19 Diaries Series”. If you are an artist interested in sharing your thoughts and artwork, as it relates to the disrupted but defining period of time we live in, please contact Michele Guieu, Eco-Artist, MAHB Member, and MAHB Arts Community coordinator: micheleguieu@gmail.com. Thank you. ~