the witch and Aslan
The Weeping Women of Juarez
They Shot the Tiger on His ChainThese are a couple of etchings I did a few years ago as a grad student. Because of the sort of violent scratching and dark nature of the ink, I ended up doing pieces that had a darker theme to them.
The first is an illustration from The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, which is essentially a crucifixion scene.
The second is a print based off of the horrible Ciudad Juarez murders. I also sort of used the Mexican legend of "La Llorona" or the "Weeping Woman". This legend supposedly starts off when an Aztec woman had an affair with a Spanish Conquistador and ended up betraying her people for him. After the conquistador had left her, she realized what she had done and went mad. La Llorona threw the children she had by the conquistador into a river. But she had loved those children and was eternally doomed to wander the lakes and rivers of Mexico looking for her babies.
An anthropology book I had read suggested that this story was why the Virgin of Guadalupe was so important in Mexican tradition. Until the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared, the cultural or mythical mother of Mexico was "La Llorona" and under this legend, Mexicans were portrayed as unwanted children of Conquistadors and Indians. The Virgin of Guadalupe brought a sense that Mexicans and all the people of the Americas were now children of God.
The third etching is based off of a song I had heard by Neko Case called "The Tigers Have Spoken". It is about a pet tiger who was put down by the police dept. To me it seemed like the song was about people who are trapped living in places they were never meant to be.
The first is an illustration from The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, which is essentially a crucifixion scene.
The second is a print based off of the horrible Ciudad Juarez murders. I also sort of used the Mexican legend of "La Llorona" or the "Weeping Woman". This legend supposedly starts off when an Aztec woman had an affair with a Spanish Conquistador and ended up betraying her people for him. After the conquistador had left her, she realized what she had done and went mad. La Llorona threw the children she had by the conquistador into a river. But she had loved those children and was eternally doomed to wander the lakes and rivers of Mexico looking for her babies.
An anthropology book I had read suggested that this story was why the Virgin of Guadalupe was so important in Mexican tradition. Until the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared, the cultural or mythical mother of Mexico was "La Llorona" and under this legend, Mexicans were portrayed as unwanted children of Conquistadors and Indians. The Virgin of Guadalupe brought a sense that Mexicans and all the people of the Americas were now children of God.
The third etching is based off of a song I had heard by Neko Case called "The Tigers Have Spoken". It is about a pet tiger who was put down by the police dept. To me it seemed like the song was about people who are trapped living in places they were never meant to be.
