A.P Draw, Paint, Print Senior Spotlight Interview: Izzy Colon

The AP Drawing Portfolio is an intensive course, requiring students to produce art at the college level. Students compile a portfolio of 15-20 original artworks demonstrating mastery in composition, technique, and concept. They pursue the WHY behind their own artistic process and participate in weekly critiques of classmates’ work, as well as submit completed pieces approximately every two weeks.

What is the central idea of your concentration?

The main idea of my concentration is the domestication of women throughout history, coinciding with the misunderstanding that women are fragile and solely viewed as housewives. I made the decision to work on recycled tablecloths, as tablecloths are a staple of a kitchen’s decoration and are very feminine in nature. Which compliments the concept of women in the household; feminine, fragile, and serving only one purpose.

How does your work demonstrate the exploration of your idea?
I decided to explore my idea through women’s clothes from different time periods and different cultures around the world. When finding reference photos I don’t restrict myself to a certain era in history or a certain region of the globe, so I can explore our world and the people who live in it. 

How has the idea evolved over the year?

Since the beginning of the year I have begun experimenting with the size of my paintings to play with people’s perception of my paintings. I am really invested in the wide range of sizes in my body of work since they range from five and half feet to six inches tall. There is no super specific reason for having such widely varying sizes, it’s just something I found fun to experiment with. When I started with my huge five and half foot painting I was constantly thinking to myself, “When is this going to start driving me crazy? When is this going to get to the point of me just sitting and staring at it because it’s just like THAT HUGE?” And even though painting the two big ones was so emotionally taxing, the second one will forever be one of my favorite paintings because I learned so much from it!!

Can you explain your artistic process? 

This is probably not something I should say after four years of art, so I’m sorry Ms. Hoadley, but a huge part of my artistic process is spontaneity. Throughout my four years, for every project no matter what we were doing, it was always drilled into us to do thumbnails. Which are little mini drawings to help us understand our subject matter and know exactly how to approach the piece. And since the beginning of working on my AP Concentration I think I’ve done maybe three thumbnails or sketches for my paintings. But that’s just who I am and what I like to see in my work! I love to see my little pencil marks poking out, stray underpainting brushstrokes, and just every single mark that makes my paintings, mine. 

What do you hope the viewer will see in your artwork?

I hope when people look at my work they can see my passion and my love for my work. When people see my paintings I hope they stop and take a minute to look at them, and just acknowledge the effort and countless hours that went into making them. Regardless of someone liking art or not I think it’s important for people to recognize the effort that goes into art making, just like recognizing an athlete’s devotion to their sport. 

How long have you been making art? And when did you start to feel independent and like you were truly making your own work?

Oh gosh, I’ve been doodling and coloring for literally as long as I can remember. But I didn’t start pursuing art seriously until eighth grade at Episcopal. I think it’s hard to say when I felt like I was making my own work because since freshman year regardless of creating work based off a prompt, I always tried to make the prompt my own. I’ve learned so much from all those projects and wouldn’t be capable of creating what I do today without having the experience from those projects. My junior year was the first time my artistic capabilities were completely set loose allowing me to do whatever I wanted and start experimenting with my style, subject matter, and medium. This is when I began to develop my voice as an artist. Experimenting with soft transitions and hard lines, beginning my exploration of the domestication of women and how I wanted to articulate that through my paintings. And now here I am, more than halfway through my senior year and still learning about myself as an artist.