This was my mini-project for Space/Materiality: Culture, where I had to use a laser cutter on wood to create something related to culture.
I wanted to stray away from the theme of space & time for this project and so I decided to create a print about a different subject regarding culture, I wanted to do something related to religion, culture and ethnic diversity, I also wanted to do something related to animals and so I combined the two and did a project about animals that are relevant in culture and religion. I started with a wolf as it is used very often used in fiction and it symbolizes spirit. I then went and did some research on a very broad topic, which was “Animals that have significance in culture”, and I selected 5 other animals (6 total) to represent in the piece. The base was a stylized drawing of a wolf, and within each part of the body, I layered references to other animals that are relevant to culture, I used the outline of a monkey and an elephant, a lion’s head and mane, a peacock feather, and a cow skull to represent a different take on my own culture of Hinduism. I then tried to layer the animals in different ways using the wolf’s head as a guideline.
The main idea was solely based off wanting to do something different, and I thought that doing something like this was a very refreshing change of pace, I was happy with how it turned out and during the project, I found that actually making the design was quite fun, while it did take some time.
Overall, I’m quite happy with how this project turned out and I also am happy I was able to make the Illustrator file translate well to wood & etching.
