Teacher Name: Annamaria Castellucci Cabral
Additional Teacher Name: Miriam Socoloff
Grade: 12
Materials: Water soluble oil
Dimensions: 43 x 28 inches
Description: Street vendors are an integral part of Chicago, especially in Little Village both economically and culturally. You will find them in every other street corner and all along 26th Street. Most are immigrants and people of color. Many are U.S. military veterans. They work long hours under harsh conditions, asking for nothing more than a chance to sell their goods on the public street or sidewalk. Street vendors capture the hard working spirit of the community. Los Eleteros represent everything positive about summer in Chicago, being able to play outside without freezing, sit on the porch until late, walk to the corner store safely without fear of being hit by a stray bullet, and of course, dine on sweetly salty-spicy corn. Some people have been selling their food for decades supporting themselves and their families by selling delicious confections. In this piece I wanted to pay tribute to street vendors in my community. Sanatamaria has continued to serve her community despite the COVID-19
Artist Statement: My art abjects frailty and hardened impenetrability, which emerges from contemporary crises of identity, boundaries and limits as conditions of a post-modern, globalised culture. As an artist I am exploring these issues through portraits and self portraits that visually examine the relationship between bodies and the world. The dissolution of the body and the apparent breakdown of modern Western society brings an increasing despair regarding invasive systemic poverty, systemic racism, and neglect. Our mental health is relayed in the play of the body’s surface and in the effects of a broken system.This progressively happens on the body’s surface, a surface behind which the individual can withdraw into the recommended social shell of oneself. Our bodies can offer people convenient roles, “characters”, and an illusion of security in a world that would otherwise be in disarray. This analogy of the body as a defensive shield is a predominant and inescapable social construct, ensuring a singular personality. As we seek to find ourselves, our bodies can be either our physical or mental limits.
The motivations and concerns of my own art practice have been informed by these engagements with the body. Our bodies are always a part of us and knowledge of our bodies is necessarily tied up with the self and identity. I have attempted to think through our bodies in a vibrant and intense format. I have attempted to show that our bodies can be understood through the forces that have controlled and contorted them, and more closely as a reflection of the world today.
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