Veronica Vela

Observing how people express their emotions through physical contact

inspired me to explore the idea of touch and hands. Throughout my life, I
have always observed the way people react to others when they are
physically touched and how at a time of overwhelming emotions such as
these, those feelings can be expressed in unexpected ways. For example,
sometimes people think that they can hide their emotions, but are often
betrayed by their instinctual gestures that convey what they are genuinely
feeling. Throughout our lives, our actions reveal how we think and feel at
that single moment. Our emotional connections to others influence how we
choose to express ourselves to friends as opposed to a lover or a stranger.
In Desmond Morris’s Manwatching: A Field Guide to Human Behavior, it
says that our body language can reveal much about “what kind of
personalities we possess and what mood we are in at the time.” We must
remember that our physical actions are just as important as the words we
say in expressing our feelings and who we are.
In my drawings, I depict commonly used hand gestures using charcoal,
graphite, watercolors, inks, and pastels. The dynamic between emotion and
physical gesture are expressed through the use of line quality and other
formal elements in the work. Lines depicting the hands carry the viewer’s
eye around the composition as it fades and becomes part of the
background. Layering of the watercolor and inks on the hands represents
the flow of emotions, revealing a person's true nature. Additionally, the
vibrant emotive color scheme draws the viewer in for a closer look at the
translucent hands. Details are what make us unique and who we are as
individuals, and whether they are perceived as good or bad we should
learn to accept them as they are. The cardboard hands reaching up as if to
accept or support the three panels are reminiscent of an altar, thus
completing the idea.