Artist Statement

Growing up, I took public transportation to go to school, in fact two buses! Every day, I would have to walk two or three blocks from one bus to the next. Many people walked by me; grown adults busy on their way to work, vendors, beggars, old, young, women, men, insane people crying or screaming, men singing, yelling, performing, and running to their next destination. I walked among people coming and going.  At the time, I was a 9-year-old kid just focused on trying to get to the next bus ride to make it to school on time and in the afternoons trying to finally get to the safety of my home! Every day I would feel so lonely, so vulnerable, and so scared.

Ever since I moved to this country, I noticed that there aren’t nearly as many people walking as a means of transportation, unless you are in a big city like NYC. The emptiness of the streets and environment has made me hyper aware of the lonely individuals walking towards, away, and around me. Almost obsessively, I give a story to each and every one of them. Because these people walking as their only means of transportation is such a rarity, the stories I create can be as simplistic as wondering their destination, to their potentially traumatic current life circumstances. I try answering the questions of where are they headed? Why are they alone? Where are they coming from? Are they distraught? Excited? Frustrated? Confused? During the whirlwind of stories I create for each person, I eventually go back to my 9 year-old self and remember the feelings of utter fear and loneliness.  

In reality, I was never alone.  Now I look back and think about all the people who have walked by me, with me, ahead of me, and behind me. As a child I never really paid too much attention to how many people walk as a means of transportation. I took for granted that all those who walked by my side when I was 9 years old protected me. I felt alone, yet I wasn’t: I was one of many. People come and go. Like guardian angels, they sometimes come into your life when you need them, or perhaps when they need you. We are all angels ready to be where we are needed, even if we don’t know it. For a lifetime, or just a brief moment, we are all here connected with a purpose. During my childhood, all of those strangers were my angels.

In my life size print installation, I try to re-create that feeling of being surrounded by everyday people, unaware of their purpose. I have made multiples of my blocks to create an immersive experience. The life size images of people walking or standing are suspended to allow them to move subtly and change with the play of light and shadow on their surfaces. This will allow the viewer to participate and to “lose” themselves in the crowd, and at the same time, experience moments of beauty exemplified not only by the imagery itself, but by the silk, its movement and the play of light and shadow on it.

Biography

Eliana Saari was born in Medellin, Colombia, South America. There, she received an Associates Degree in Fashion Design. Soon after, she moved to the United States and received a B.A. in Art and Spanish from Otterbein College, and a MFA in Printmaking from the Ohio State University.

Over the past 20 years, she has split her time teaching and making art professionally. She is currently a faculty member of the art department at Ohio Dominican University. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. In 2008, she was awarded the Artist in Residence Exchange in Dresden, Germany by the Ohio Arts Council. In 2016 and 2017 she received a printmaking award for her work in the Ohio State fair Fine Arts exhibition. Currently, she is a member of the Phoenix Rising Cooperative in Columbus, OH.