Eduardo Kobra Brazilian Mural Artist Eduardo Kobra was born and raised in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in the neighborhood of Campo Limpo. All his life he had been interested in art, drawing and painting from the age of 8. As he grew up, he became very familiar with Hip-Hop and street culture. He began to realize that he could utilize the walls around him to create his artwork and make a statement. He began getting involved in Graffiti, learning everything he knows about art fro the streets. For awhile he did Graffiti illegally, even being arrested for his work. But now he has gained recognition and is given the opportunity to paint in some of the most famous areas of the world. He loves basing his paintings on past images that hold importance to our culture, and then transforming it using unconventional colors to give it a whole new visual identity. He loves breaking patterns and causing people to pay closer attention to their surroundings. During the 2016 Olympics in Rio, Kobra was given the opportunity to create a massive mural there in Rio. He chose to do multiple portraits of people of various ethnicity, using colors and patterns to color their skin. He used 100 gallons of white paint, 400 gallons of colored paint and 3,500 cans of spray paint to create the piece. Kobra wanted to highlight the idea that we are all one, united even in this time of war and conflict. I am drawn to Kobra's work because his work is incredibly inspirational, and his depiction of the human face is stunning. I am very drawn to his use of eccentric color, and the passion that I feel he has for his work. I enjoy researching his exploration of ethnicity and how they are unified, as this is a subject that is very important to me. I hope to incorporate my inspiration from his work into my own Political Identity Piece. Perhaps I could create a self portrait, filling the skin with the colors of the flags of my own heritage, expressing how that heritage has influence my political identity. Or perhaps I can continue to explore the ethnicity of others through a portrait of someone from another continent, expressing my passion for that subject. Karlito Miller Espinosa (Mata Ruda) Mural Artist from Costa Rica Karlito Miller Espinosa, also known as Mata Ruda, was born in Costa Rica and raised in Venezuala before moving to the US with his parents at age 11. Now, at age 26, Ruda is an internationally renowned mural artist, living in Arizona. He has painted murals in various areas around the world, including Puerto Rico, and more recently, Coronado. His work is focused around one topic: immigration. He hopes to highlight the personal experience of the immigrant and the journeys they experience as they leave their home countries and arrive in the US. In Ruda's pieces, he uses acrylic exterior paint on the wall he is painting. He also uses nature within his pieces to highlight the connection humankind has to the environment and surroundings, a topic vitally important to the experience of a refugee. I am drawn to Ruda's work because it is completed in a way that is both inspiring and refreshing. It causes one to seek the beauty in others and in oneself, recognizing the connection present between humankind and nature. I hope to use my inspiration from Ruda's work in my own piece on political identity, incorporating the theme of immigration and the connection to nature that I see in his work. Sonia Boyce British Artist Sonia Boyce is a British artist, living and working in London. Currently, she is a professor at Middlesex University and Professor of Black Art and Design at University of the Arts London. Through her art, Sonia has done research about art as a social practice. She explores various critical and contextual debates that arise from this area of research, and is often participating in collaborative work with other artists. She uses a variety of media including drawing, painting, video, sound, photography, print, and collage. Sonia loves to explore sound and memory, the dynamics of space, and the incorporation of the viewer. Many of her pieces also explore her relationship to her constructed self image and her heritage/roots in reconstruction. I am drawn to Sonia's work because of the deep understanding she seems to have of herself, and her exploration of race, heritage, and identity through various mediums. I hope to use my inspiration from Sonia to incorporate some collage or photography into my piece, as well as exploring the idea of racial identity relating to political affiliation. In the bottom of the piece above are the words, "...they say keep politics out of religion and religion out of politics- but when were they ever separate?" This question is something that I would like to possibly explore more, as so much of a person's political identity revolves around their moral convictions and their personal religious beliefs, or lack thereof.
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