Evelyn Italiano

My name is Evelyn, or Evie, Italiano and I am a senior who is majoring in a Bachelor of Fine Arts with an Emphasis in Illustration at Webster University. I have always enjoyed creating fictional characters and creatures because I have always discerned it as a form of evasion from the predicaments and turmoil of the world. Some of the characters I have created hold features from real-life animals, such as chinchillas, pigs, ducks, reptiles or marine life creatures. For the exhibition this year, I was hoping to include a few characters that I created when I was a teenager, who are Voreio the lynx, the Wamphigas and Hobblegogs while I was also hoping to challenge myself into working with in a larger scale since I have always worked within sketchbooks, notebooks or backgrounds of a limited scale.

Voreio, the character in the first image, is a colossal lynx whose fur is forged out of the Aurora Borealis, and his fur is always shifting in colors; in the evening, he rides across the night sky where humans on the ground below sleep. The Wamphigas, who is with the startled young girl in the center image, is a creature whose responsibility includes rehabilitating the plants within his environment—he along with the rest of his species are truly shy and prefer not to communicate with humans, but this scene includes the first time he has ever encountered a human. In the final image, which include the two large creatures with immense round ears as well as duck and reptilian anatomy are a species of marine life creatures known as hobblegogs: these staunch scaled waterfowl animals are affiliated with a tribe that preserve clandestine water temples hidden deep within canyons that connect to the ocean.