Wednesday, November 2, 2016

TOW #7 -- "Betrayal" by Mario Sanchez Nevado (Visual Text)



"Betrayal" is a digital art piece uploaded by Mario Sanchez Nevado on 2012. Nevado is a freelance art director, Illustrator, and Photographer born in Barcelona, and he currently lives in Spain where he mainly creates CD album cover art for music bands. This art piece serves as a message towards everyone in regards to global warming and pollution which has become a large issue for today’s society. His work portrays humans as quite literally betraying mother nature by killing her despite all the life she supports including ours, and Nevado created this most likely as an effort to raise more awareness of just how drastic the effects of human activities are becoming for the sake of money.
Looking to the right side of the painting, the hand holding the gun appears to be smoldering hot, causing even the skin above to be damaged by it. This represents how humans are collectively causing the Earth to rise in temperature in the form of global warming while simultaneously damaging themselves, and yet the hand still holds the gun firmly as if to ignore the repercussions of it all. The gun itself, carrying a city upon the frame, is a clear indicator of what the major source of global warming is originating from. This city is all black, giving it an ominous and toxic appearance as it pumps out an equally black smog that begins to invade the light and purity of mother nature. The city’s placement gives off an idea of being directly built on the presence of this threat in order to thrive since, without it, there would be nothing for the city to be built on. All of these little details add up to show humans holding mother nature at gunpoint, expressing how drastic and effect our actions are producing by implying that we are essentially murdering our Earth for the sake of profit and corporations to keep these cities that rest on the gun operating.

On the left side of the picture, we see mother nature in a form quite literally symbolized by a feminine and delicate figure. She shows no resistance to the threat being presented to her as if there is nothing she can do about it except shed tears in response to being killed by her own product of evolution. This concept of being unable to resist translates to the reality that is the Earth’s inability to simply recover or defend itself from what we are doing to it. The pollution and harmful effects of our actions are damaging and killing our Earth, and it has no way of fighting back against it unless we take away the gun ourselves. 
Overall, Nevado has painted a powerful image that grabs our attention and is hopefully causing more people to see the consequences of our choices as a global society. It shows our actions to the true extent of their repercussions and helps viewers bring the large-scale Earth down to perspective.

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