La Calavera Aburrida
Sylvia Ji’s subjects are zombified women with lips sewn up tight and painted faces. Though technically quite talented, the use of symbolism in her artwork can be blunt to the point of banality, as is the case with La Calavera Catrina, (perhaps you noticed the black widow spider dangling from her hat? If not there’s another one crawling on her hair). At some point her artwork becomes like a blandly-executed version of one of those posters with 100 hidden references to band names, but without the laughs.
Tags: Sylvia Ji
October 25th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
I found your blog through a Google image search for la calavera Catrina, and just wanted to leave a quick note to help explain a little about what this series from Ji is about. The women are modeled after Dia de los Muertos skeletons — and specifically after upper-class lady skeletons called Catrinas — so the black accents are meant to look like bare skull eye sockets, nose cartilage gaps, and the outlines of teeth. You can read more about Catrinas on Wikipedia if you’re interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Calavera_Catrina.
November 30th, 2009 at 11:58 am
Dia de los Muertos is a fascinating Mexican Holiday and the art associated with it is very beautiful and colorful. You should def look into it before you form your opinion on the ‘zombie women’