Isa Medina

This project focuses on the ephemeral and transience of life. It explores the relationship between oneself and losing an extension of the self; someone or something we love and are attached to. A metaphorical figure, a blue jaguar, is used to explain the narrative of the project and why it was created. My father’s poems about the jaguars and their near extinction is what inspires me to draw them and I feel more connected to the animal. Through these poems I can feel the pain and loss of the jaguars, not only do they refer to animals but to the impermanence of humanity and its injustices. This animal is very present and important to me as it has appeared to me not only through the poems but in a variety of ways. The jaguar in the paintings and narrative represents the journey of many things, it represents our loved ones who have passed away, friendships and lovers that disappear, people who live and die from injustices, animals in danger of extinction; these losses that we experience, that slowly deteriorate, the impermanence of life. Death and loss is something we all as living creatures share. Having experienced death with my own eyes more than once, makes me want to translate the feeling of watching and sensing loss of a loved one through an ephemeral piece. This visual will act as an “experience” of loss as it is being destroyed; as a way to learn how to let go of the physical and those deep grievable thoughts and images that don’t let one live fully.