AP Art of the Week

Spotlight on Artist Hilyd Mirabel

The Elective’s digital art museum this week features an illustration made by Hilyd Mirabel from Miami Arts Studio 6-12 @ Zelda Glazer in Miami, Florida.

Elective Staff

  • November 28, 2022

Welcome to The Elective’s digital art museum, dedicated to the incredible work of AP Arts students. Each week we highlight a work or series created in one of the AP Arts concentrations—AP 2-D Art and Design, 3-D Art and Design, and AP Drawing (the AP Program also offers Art History and Music Theory)—as well as a statement from the artist (and, occasionally, their teacher).

From the first cave paintings to contemporary breakthroughs in virtually reality, art, in all its forms, has been a crucial way for people to process, make sense of, comment on, and grapple with the world around them. After more than a year of life in a pandemic, AP Art students have risen to the challenge of processing and making sense of the challenges—and opportunities—that have come from this perilous time. The work they submitted in their final portfolios is explicitly of the moment. It’s often challenging and provocative, but always insightful, inspiring, and expansive.

This week we feature an illustration made by Hilyd Mirabel from Miami Arts Studio 6-12 @ Zelda Glazer in Miami, Florida.

Black and white wood block print of a plaza with a palace in background and a young woman in a pink shirt and blue skirt reaching for white birds in the foreground

Here’s Hilyd’s statement on the work:

 

“How do the places where we have lived made a mark on your life? How do these places help shape the person you are today? Life is a force of constant movement that makes us navigate from place to place, sometimes unexpected places, calm places, traumatic places, emotional and decisive places. Art allows you to relive your memories and materialize them in form and color. My technique of carved lines in a variety of printmaking using a linoleum sheet allowed me to immerse myself in the sincere memories of my childhood, of those vivid places full of lines and buildings. As Winston Churchill stated, ‘We shape our buildings; thereafter, they shape us.’ My carvings printed on linoleum blocks represent three places, three architectures and three experiences lived. New Jersey, Colombia, and Miami. These three places have sculpted who I am today by the relationships I made there, the culture I experienced and the lessons I learned.”

And here are a few other works from Hilyd’s portfolio:

Black and white wood block print of a street corner depicting low-rise buildings and a clock

I grew up on this street. The clock shows the time I was born and the bakery sign has my birth year.

Black and white wood block print of a highway at the top and a woman's face with flowing hair at the bottom

My curly hair represents the river and how I finally felt grounded in Miami. Miami is my home.

Color illustration of a fish-eye view of a woman walking down a street of colorful skyscrapers

This piece was a sketch from my sketchbook that was redone and digitalized on Procreate.

Black and white illustration of a woman in a light bulb with a red city skyline in the background

I drew the woman and bulb using markers. I then transferred it to procreate and drew the red city.

Black and white wood block print of a city scene with an eye at the bottom

I drew the buildings on procreate, printed them out, and added the eye and waves with a marker.

Black and white wood block print of a city with an eye in a rain cloud above it

The buildings are one block print printed twice and layered. I drew the eye and tears using a Sharpie.

Black and white wood block print of a stop sign with a green street sign above it reading Frank Sinatra Blvd.

I sketched the drawing and carved it out. I printed it using ink and painted the street sign.

Student statements are lightly edited for length and clarity.

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