Claudia Garofalo
Claudia Garofalo is a primarily visual artist who enjoys working with traditional and digital media to create narrative illustrations. As a first-year university student, Claudia has
already showcased work in a couple of galleries in both York University and her former highschool. Storytelling, emotion, and composition are prime focuses in her work, which she uses to articulate her own feelings in a way words cannot. She has a strong love and interest for anatomy and the human body, which is often depicted in the subject matter of her work. Claudia enjoys the exploration of the contrast between the calculated and scientific way in which our bodies work vs the abstract complexity of what it means to experience being human.
This project will consist of 1-3 masks (I have not decided as I do not yet know how intricate they will be) that will be sculpted out of white clay. Colour will be added with paint. I have created a prototype cast of my face with aluminium foil and paper mache and will use either that or a plaster cast of my face to sculpt the mask(s) onto. I will then build up the details of the mask(s) and bake them once ready. I will then add colour where necessary with paint. For this project, I was inspired by Italian Carnevale masks. I like how grandiose the costumes and masks feel, and would like to invoke this feeling in the audience. I have always liked how these types of masks looked, especially the ones with exaggerated features (ex. Noses and chins) and aside from invoking the response of grandiosity and beauty in a viewer, I wouldn’t say there was any real meaning behind it. In the end, this is mostly a passion project to explore things I have always found beautiful.