These original drawings are small studies or practices. They help me to sharpen my understanding of drawing styles or they are efforts to learn new styles of drawing… new for me that is. I generally study old ways of hatching and cross hatching, often imitating different printing methods (relief and intaglio) and also styles of drafting. Some of these styles go back as far as the early medieval period around 900 or 1000.
I have a special love of the German Renaissance, particularly Albrecht Durer, Hanz Holbein, and Heinrich Aldegrever (early 1500s). The styles that inspire me, coming from the most recent historical periods (for these drawings), are from comic books, particularly the 1970s. Artists like Moebius, Crumb, Frazetta and Mark Schultz.
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Ravi Zupa considers books the best way to experience art. He has spent decades studying books about the art, mythology, religion, and history of cultures from across geography and time. Entirely self-taught, Zupa looks to works by German Renaissance printmakers, Flemish primitives, abstract expressionists, Japanese woodblock artists, and Mughal painters for inspiration. He also frequently incorporates religious iconography from Europe, Asia, and Pre-Columbian Latin America with revolutionary propaganda from around the world. With a distaste for ironic art or the thoughtless appropriation of culture, he integrates seemingly unrelated images in search of something universal. Zupa does not create any of his art digitally; everything comes from his own hand.
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BILLY BERMERT (February 2, 2022)
