Artist Statement and Thumbnail Sketches

 For this semester in advanced drawing, my works will be based on movies. I want my works to represent various aspects about the films that they will be based on. This may be themes that pertain to the films or maybe even some trivia about them that some people may not know. I was thinking that in doing this I can also give a review of the films through the drawings as I am somewhat interested in reviewing films and think that this will be an interesting way in doing one. In the end of the day, I would just want the works to be about my interpretation. I feel that interpretation is a key word because I have already taken this class before, and we were asked to do something similar in picking a theme and doing 5 artworks based on said theme. Some of the other students picked themes that were more philosophical or serious and I ended up deciding to do drawings based on songs. Picking songs for this project is kind of similar to movies in the sense that they are both already existing pieces of pop culture entertainment. When I started that project I kind of started wrong because I was trying to do drawings that were literal translations of the songs and not what they meant to me. So going forward with this new project, this is something that I will have in mind. I feel that this will be interesting because movies are very visual and sometimes those visuals maybe key to the movie's themes, but I feel that I can do something that will manage to meet the criteria and also pay respect to the movies themselves. 

The motion picture is the most important art film ever devised by the human race. That's because it is the art form that creates empathy than any other. It creates our ability to step out of our own shoes. One of the marks of civilization is to be able to somehow step outside your own mind and your own experience and to understand what it is like to be a person of another race, another age, another gender, another nationality. To have different physical capabilities, to have different beliefs. And when I go to the movies for two hours at least I have an out of body experience. If the movie is working for me to some degree, I am that person on the screen. I forget my social security number, I don't know where I parked the car, I am having vicariously an experience that has happened to someone else and that makes me a better person, or it can make me a better person. And I sincerely believe that to see good films and to see important films is one of the most profoundly civilized experiences that we can have as people. That when we go to the theatre and empathize with those people who are not ourselves. It makes us better people, more broad minded. More able to understand what's right with the world and what's wrong with the world.

                                      -Roger Ebert