Artist Statement #1

The zine that I created is based on a theme of urbanization and humans neglecting nature. In my opinion I think I demonstrated this theme quite well through the use of my images. For my cover I have a beautiful image of a sunset over the Flatirons and I think that this image is captivating and it highlights the beauty of nature very well. The following images show a story of a construction man building a cell tower to block the view of the sunset and I think that this is symbolic of humans ability to neglect nature in pursuit of profit and or expansion. The next image is a large highway and an emoji with his thumbs up to show his happiness with urban expansion and development. I meant this to be satirical because I think that there is no need for such a large highway because of the contribution that this method of transportation has towards pollution and climate change. The next image I have is a large parking lot that takes up the space of two pages and I did this to show what a waste of space it is to have a parking lot that is unused. The next image I have is a hand squeezing the earth to extract oil and the oil is falling into a drum that has a dollar sign on it. I made this to show the greed of big oil and show how they are destroying the planet for monetary gain. The next image is a birds eye view of a neighborhood and I did this to show again what a waste of space it is to have suburbs and unused housing. Not only is it a waste of space but it is a large use of resources and I think that it is unnecessary. The houses in the neighborhood are bland and not unique which is how I see suburbia. The next image is a series of landscapes of different places on earth and I did this to show the beauty and diversity of many places on earth and draw a contrast to my previous images of monotony and blandness. The next image is a seal with a plastic bag around its neck and I did this to show how pollution impacts wildlife and how detrimental it is when humans impact other species. The last image I have is an image of a smoke stack polluting the air and in the toxic fumes that it is spewing it says “THE END” which is to show the viewer that my zine is over and also allude to the end of the planet by means of air pollution. While making this piece I learned lots about adobe photoshop and illustrator and I learned about the large culture behind zines. If I were to do something differently next time I would spend more time learning about photoshop and illustrator so I can make better looking images.