Xandria Moreno

Submerged

Mixed media Painting

“My Art piece is a personal reflection of my ongoing struggle with my outward appearance. In 2020 I developed a severe case of eczema, this period of my life was hard to go through both mentally and physically. The piece was intended to convey the emotional and physical sensations I've felt and continue to go through. This work takes heavy influence from graffiti culture and abstract art. I wanted to go for these two specific styles of art and combine them because I felt the combination of a style that's primarily disregarded as unsightly vs a style that takes the subjective view of an artist and gives them a platform to explore and express themselves freely, is something that best fit for this piece. Graffiti carries a negative stigma due to its juvenile nature. Tagging culture more specifically is seen as unsightly to the public. I wanted to first replicate the public poster boards/walls that have been repetitively covered by multiple individuals. Using this imagery in mind in addition to layering painting techniques, I was able to replicate the scab texturing of skin. The figure used was meant to replicate one of my prominent memories of being in a bath and just feeling filthy. It carries Two poses, one where her arms are up and hands covering her face as she's looking up, and then a stencilled pose of her being more sensual. I picked these poses specifically to counter my feelings of disdain and envy for beautiful girls, or just anyone with normal skin.The colours and layers were meant to be overwhelming and dirty, a lot of my mind was in a constant state of rapid thoughts. The mark makings were deliberate not only in texturing, but also to replicate scratch marks, and discolouration, and also tie it in with graffiti/public art. The early layers were heavily inspired by public graffiti walls, ones where posters/ads/tags/stickers would be stacked on top of each other. The collaged layers I’ve compiled as the under piece consisted of branded stickers, tags, and mini prints of pop art. Even though it’s not the most visible in the final piece I specifically wanted to have some form of pop art (in both the prints and of the half-tone inspired texturing) I was at least aware of. Pop art and graffiti stencilling are known for their reproduction and identifiable imagery based on modern culture more or less. I wanted to incorporate the two since they go hand in hand not only by what they’re known for but also because I’d associate them with my personal feelings toward media culture. During this period I’d actively avoid looking at pop culture, social media posts, and images of people out of skin envy. But in the back of my mind, it’s always there, knowing social media reposts are equally reproduced on a modern scale.”