Shadow

By Suzy Lee http://www.suzyleebooks.com/
Published Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 2010
ISBN 978-0-8118-72805
Charcoal pencil, spray paint, watercolor, digital manipulation
Annotation
A seemingly childish book loaded with internal meaning, a little girl plays in the garage, while one page shows her playing by herself, the shadow page shows what she is feeling and seeing while playing.
Personal Reaction
Sometimes, in the city, you can look down on the sidewalk and see a spray painted stencils, or a path of this unsanctioned art. (You can see an example here http://daviswiki.org/Urban_Art#head-8457dca6ffa64014ccedff1ab57555ca2fb0df94). Shadow reminds me of this art medium, Suzy Lee created a book around spray painted shadows of her innocent pencil and ink drawings. Each page is mirrored by a darker image, at times monsters creep out of the shadowed side and run onto the more innocent childlike page. I think sidewalk stencil art is interesting and I think Lee has captured an essence of it in this book, the stencils often are a wake up call, sometimes political, often poignant. This book is subtle, but it conveys a feeling of innocence on the edge, or both sides of a perspective, the real and the imagined.
Curricular connections 
Art
**Use of Symbol or Symbolism