Portfolio Fall 2007

So here it is! A semester of hard hard HARD work and lots of hours in the studio has boiled down to these 10 pieces. This is what I submitted to my professor as my end of semester portfolio. Next semester I will be adding 10 more pieces and also updating the artist statement. The Life of a Typical GorGor, Sept 2007, Pen and watercolor on paper, individual: 7 x 10 inches

Mischievous GorGors, Sept 2007, Ink and pen on coasters, Individual: 4 x 4 inches


Eric Carle, Oct 2007, Ink and pen on tracing paper and cardboard, 10 x 8 inches


Marabou Blues, Oct 2007, Pen and ink on paper, 12 x 9 inches


Birds 2, Nov 2007, Pen and watercolor on paper, 20 x 26 inches


Flight of the Birds, Nov 2007, Pen and watercolor, string, various papers, 4 x 7 inches

Details below





Rainy Day, Nov 2007, Mixed Media, Individual: 8.5 x 11 inches (printed)


Mutated Chicken 2, Nov 2007, Pen and watercolor on paper, 9 x 12 inches



Mutated Chicken, Nov 2007, Pen and watercolor on paper, 9 x 12 inches


Awkward Silence, Nov 2007, Pen and watercolor on paper and Mylar, 20 x 26 inches

Detail below



Artist Statement

I grew up in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Both my parents are architects. When I was a child my mom’s firm was in the flat below ours which she had converted into an office. I remember going downstairs and taking her stencils and rulers and designing my own houses in profile complete with family members occupying various rooms. I also loved to watch cartoons like Tom & Jerry and the Looney Toons on VHS that were taped from the video store. Looking back, I realize that a lot of my childhood art was very graphic with vivid colours.

Cartoons and animation have always been a part of my life. I always wanted to know what happened behind the scenes in making the animated shorts and movies. In March 2006 I was in California and had the opportunity to get a tour of Pixar Animation Studios. Seeing all the developmental art work that goes into a film was like a dream come true and it had a huge impact on me. I realized during the visit that I wanted to do something with animation but I was not sure what.

I took an illustration class at Studio Art Centers International while studying abroad in Florence in 2007. By the end of the semester I finally understood what really drew me to animation: the art of illustration. In Florence I illustrated a picture book, Stork Sits Down to Read. It is about a Marabou stork that is looking for a chair to sit in to read his book. But unable to find a comfortable chair he sits on the floor.

This semester I illustrated a second stork book continuing his misfortune. In the latest book he prepares for rainy weather but by the time he is ready the rain stops. While the Marabou stork story was an ongoing project throughout the semester, I worked on other projects. I focused on character development. I created characters based on forms seen in nature, particularly birds and sea-life. Birds constantly appear in my recent work, whether in context of a short story or just for the sake of drawing something colorful. Birds are such free and vibrant animals. It is this aspect about birds that attracts me to them. The bird form allows for much freedom of my imagination when I am drawing. Along with the birds, I drew the GorGors. The GorGors are creatures whose bodies are influenced by the shapes of shrimp, octopus, and hatchet fish. I drew out the different stages of a GorGor’s life and started an animation about them in Adobe Flash, which I hope to further develop next semester. Later in the semester, the birds and the GorGors crossed paths, resulting in mutated chickens, animals with chicken upper bodies but GorGor-esque lower bodies. I really enjoyed created these mutated beings and want to continue to explore them. Though these characters are fun to draw and look at, they are not in any particular setting. I want to place them in a specific location rather than just a plain meadow. Their context and background needs developing; who are they? Where did they come from? Why are they here? What are they doing?

An idea came to my mind the other day as a potential project: to use my creatures to illustrate different creation myths. I feel that looking at these myths will help me figure out what these imaginative creatures are about and their purpose. After all, these myths tell our supposed creation.