Exhibition "Beautiful Losers"

 

     During my junior year at the School of Visual Arts, I had the opportunity to create a series of illustrations for a theme-based exhibition of selected works by third year students in the BFA Illustration and Cartooning Department. The exhibition was curated by Department Chair Thomas Woodruff at the SVA Chelsea Gallery in April 2014. The theme of this year was "Beautiful Losers", and I chose to illustrate the story of Christopher McCandless.

 

     Christopher McCandless, also known as Alexander Supertramp from the book and film Into the Wild, was truly a modern version tragic hero of our society. He was sickened by the materialistic world losing its core values and morale over fame, pride, and appearance. He chose to disappear, and started his journey west to Alaska in hopes of finding the true meaning of happiness in life. The deeper and farther into the West he went, the happier and the freer his soul became. Christopher's journey was an act of proving to himself that happiness is not a product of money and fame, and that the true way of living to the fullest was to do live simply and to embrace nature.

 

     Each painting was done on a 2ft wide round wood panel with acrylic paint and mixed media.

     Above is how the paintings were presented at the gallery.