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-This piece in particular came as a result of another assignment for my AP Economics class which asked me to create a collage of pictures that I thought represented the current image of America. During this week, I was thinking a lot about elements of art that come under criticism by different types of people. I remembered an artist by the name of Damien Hirst who was under fire in 2013 for creating artwork that utilized preserved animals to explore themes of space and reaction from the public. When I think of modern artwork and recent art history from people like Jean Micheal Basquiat and Keith Haring, I wanted to create a piece of artwork that was more about the reactions people have to it than what it might mean. Regardless of how accustomed an artist might be to images of death and human condition, people will always be shocked by shocking things. I used Inkscape to create a vector of a skinned sheep head, which in Spain is a common sight to see stacked in a pile with other animals at an outdoor market. I also thought alot about the Religious significance sheep and lambs have had to human culture and what it means to myself. To me, the lamb of God means both a combination of the sacrifice Jesus made to humanity to cleanse us of our sins, but also that people regardless of their actions are still children of God. I think that my life has shaped my perception of innocence and forgiveness, and have come to the conclusion that sometimes, there are things we do that can’t ever be truly forgiven. Part of what I feel makes us different from animals is that be it from evolution or being made in the image of god, we ultimately decide our fates through choice. The incorporation of the skinned sheep head multiplied onto a collage of recent white supremacy and anti-immigration  rallies is used to draw parallels between humans and sheep. While its certain that the sheep who had died in this photo did not have a choice or whether or not he would survive, people will always have the ability to decide their own fates and drive their own lifes. However, just like sheep, we also thrive and benefit from rallies and groups with mob mentality. To me, as long as humans have choice,  not every lamb of god is a good lamb.

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-My investigation follows a personal curiosity that has always been of interest to me, “What exact qualities make us human?”. Often, when people discuss this question, they bring up the notion that humans aren’t animals; rather than lead with instinct, humans are logical, self-aware, and learn about the world around them. I wanted to approach this question at a different level to better understand what makes us human. The way I’m doing this is by comparing the often undiscussed similarities humans share with animals and their behaviors. In post mortem, I connect human death rituals to that of the highly intelligent magpie. Being a part of the corvid family alongside crows, ravens, and bluejays, this subspecies in particular is known for viewing death in a way that breaks the barrier from the primitive animalistic mind. This bird has been shown to not only recognize their dead, but also mourn them. These birds spend time pecking gently at the corpse of their dead, and have even been seen covering the deceased with blades of grass and twigs as if covering up the scene. While I could have easily stuck with primates as my model for comparison in my investigation, exploring the intelligence that lies in species not related to the hominid brings a sense of connection to the world around me as an individual. In this piece, I chose to represent the shared perception of mourning and death by creating a Victorian post mortem photo. In the Victorian age of England, it was common for people to have their dead posed for the camera to preserve a peaceful, and lasting image of their loved ones. In “Post Mortem”, I depict this historical funeral ritual by drawing a mother magpie holding her deceased baby, posing soberly for the camera. She is dressed in a traditional Victorian funeral dress to signify her recognition of the death of her baby, the importance of this photo, and being in a state of mourning. Like the Magpie, humans create funeral rituals to honor the dead, which varies across different cultures and societies. Being that the magpie is from Europe, I thought this animal would represent this connection best.

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Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been fascinated with figuring out what differentiates human beings from our animal counterparts. How is it possible that despite evolving along with us, even domestic species like dogs, cats, and livestock do not share the same levels of intelligence or awareness of one’s self? This led me to my sustained investigation question "How is Human culture, identity, and society represented through animals?". While I believes initially that my investigation was limited to a general observation of the differences between humans and animals, I had not anticipated for it to evolve into three different focus points.

The exploration unfolded from inspiration drawn by Irish painter Francis Bacon in pieces 5 and 6 with loosely painted, animalistic figures in independent states of turmoil and raw emotion. From this focus of enveloping and tiring states of expression came image 7, which is a depiction of my selfish and reclusive nature which defended me from conflict during the months I was at school after the sudden and traumatic passing of my father. Reflecting on how animals have been used in place of human characters, images 8, 9, 10, and 13 use animal caricatures to show how people see themselves in a different light. Ending with connecting the behaviors of animals to human nature, as well as signifying the importance of animals in health care and advancing science, Images 11 and 12 are made. Though beginning initially with wanting to differentiate human nature from animals and their instincts, I instead discovered how similar we are to each other. In times of grief, humans can become greedy, selfish, and turn into beings only interested in survival and self-preservation. Throughout culture we’ve also used animal characters to make commentary on both human condition and our involvement in history. And last but not least, we owe our advancements in medicine, patient care, and procedures to animals in testing facilities.

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Investigation; "How is Human culture, identity, and society represented through animals?"
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This drawing was made during a week in my life last year where I felt completely isolated from my friends and family after experiencing the loss of my dad. Growing up, I was really interested in the contrast between how people and animals interact with one another. I took a lot of comfort especially in learning about wolves and their behavior because unlike my own growing up, the dynamics they shared in their families were always predictable. A lot of what looking and understanding my own trauma growing up was connected to how I behaved as a result of it. I've always been hyper critical of how unlike my friends, sometimes I had a really hard time processing and getting myself through little tasks. I developed this "Lone-wolf" mentality, which even now meshes with how I percieve myself as a human being. I spent most of my time during my grieving process being angry at my friends and teachers who, despite knowing what I was going though, never came up to me or asked how I was doing. I decided that because of this I'd spend the week alone, waiting for anyone to come up to me and ask how I was doing. Writing this now I guess it looks selfish, but considering how long I'd been a really good, supporting, kind, and advice giving friend to the people who were upset over things that seemed little in contrast, it really was a shock that no one even looked my way. I didn't really know how to put down every little thing I'd been feeling during this week onto paper for my next assignment, so I came up with a disfigured, angry, defensive portrayal of myself. Instead of hoping that someone would come and help me when I needed it the most, I became a complete loner. I think that feeling was what I was trying to capture most in this piece.

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Unlike the 'exaggerated' explanation and meaning behind my previous post, I had a really great time with this one. This was actually both an art assignment and an english assignment that I made work for both my investigation and other class. This is actually a redraw of a chapter illustration from a book called "Maus". In Maus, the author chose to represent the Jewish people as mice, the polish as pigs, and the Nazis as cats. Accompanied with a graphic novel storytelling style, and great writing, I really honed into how a constant feeling of fear and insecurity came from the book. They did this not only of course by making the nazi's cats, but also my the author still drawing a significant size difference between the mice and other animals. You can really understand the tone and state of mind from the hiding and captured recounting of the main character's life from this alone. for this piece, I really wanted to understand how to create 'tone' and environment in my art. using  white whispy lines along side ominous, looming solid blacj sillouetes helped to create a scene of hiding on the battlefield. The eye of the mouse is dead set in the middle of the image, letting the viewer explore the feeling of being in the character's place before looking at the rest of the piece. There is Contrast not only in color scheme, but also between flowing fields of long grass and a almost hidden plane looming in the upper right corner. Overall, this was both a homage to the use of animal characters in depictions of human history to convey universal messages, as well as learning how to portray tone and environment through my selection of materials.

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Untitled- Image 6 (From old AP class- Highland)

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Untitled- Image 6 (From old AP class- Highland)

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This piece was more of an experiment than anything else. During this week, I'd been watching a few documentaries on the Irish painter 'Francis Bacon'. Francis was known for changing the contemporary art scene with his raw depictions of the human condition. His pieces are very fluid, with washy and quick paint strokes. In addition to keeping this consistency with his art style, he created artwork that showed demented, humanoid figures existing in what felt to me like space disconnected from anything familiar. In these ominous spaces, many a time these figures would be expressing strong emotions, almost as if in a constant and unchanging state of raw pain. I saw myself in Bacon because ,like him, I'd also experienced the sudden loss of someone very important to me, and was left in what felt like an unending cycle of dealing with grief head-on, forgetting it existed, and restarting the emotions all over again. While I feel like this practice of emulating both the style and feel of Bacon's art style was not done to the best extent, trying this way of painting was a very therapeutic process for me that allowed me to confront a lot of what I'd been feeling at the time.

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Image 13 - "Behind the Magic" Sophia Basulto

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Image 13 - "Behind the Magic" Sophia Basulto

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Image 10 -"Behind the Magic"
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Parody of early 2000s political Cartoons covering Disney's lack of public stand on the "Don't day Gay" Bill in Florida, despite marketing to LGBT groups with gaypride merchandise year round in their themeparks

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Going into biological sciences at a school known for research, i was thinking about the role animal testing has played in discovering new treatments for humans. While I wish we could live in a world where wedidn'ttneedt to experiment on other creatures, I alsacknowledgeout many of these experiments, people would continue to die and suffer. For every recovered patient looking at a new sunrise they thought they wouldn't see, there were animals that suffered to get him to that place in the first place.

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Untitled (Image 5) (From old AP class - Highland)

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Untitled (Image 5) (From old AP class - Highland)