eyra on BPB: Ana Benaroya for Long Form

Every Thurs­day I share some­thing from eyra, my online illus­tra­tion gallery. Look to it for con­tem­po­rary illus­tra­tion! You can shop, view, and read about illus­tra­tion all through eyra.co.

Ana Benaroya is an illus­tra­tor who has a piece in eyra’s newest exhi­bi­tion, Long Form, which fea­tures work of unusu­al­ly long or tall sizes. In Ana’s piece, Rulers of the Under­world, she’s cho­sen to cre­ate a dip­tych. Buy the orig­i­nal (14″ x 33″ in size) or prints from eyra’s shop!

I real­ly enjoyed the chal­lenge of work­ing in a long for­mat, some­thing I nev­er real­ly do! I thought to approach it as a col­lage or jux­ta­po­si­tion of two sep­a­rate paint­ings — one of the reclin­ing woman and the oth­er of the tor­so of a man. I paint­ed them simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, going back and forth, so they would be con­nect­ed in this way, even though they are on sep­a­rate sheets of paper. I always like to leave some ele­ment of chance or “mis­take” in my work. By join­ing the two paint­ings at the end, I allowed for this to happen.

What I like about Rulers of the Under­world is the mys­tery behind it. Who are this man and this woman? With the obstruct­ed fig­ure, what can we ascer­tain from the man based on what Ana has presented?

More works by Ana, via her blog and web­site.