Cynthia Alfonso’s “need to experiment” with figurative comics and graphics

Cynthia Alfonso is a visual artist and illustrator who dabbles in multidisciplinary techniques. Accounting for her most recent endeavours, which are a huge contrast to her previous risograph printed illustrations, she now explores all-things digital with a bold and surrealist approach.

“I gradually steered towards comic and graphics. It allows me to narrate everything that goes through my head in a sequence of images,” Cynthia tells It’s Nice That. From self-publishing and creating zines with friends, she has shaped various instalments of compelling visuals that tell a dream-like sequence throughout.

With an aim to dig deep into her emotive and artistic capabilities, Cynthia has managed to stir a sense of empathy drawn from her own encounters. “[The images] tend to be my own experiences or feelings of a specific moment. I often try to express anxiety, feelings of being overwhelmed, the emptiness I leave in certain things and the passage of time,” she says. Her execution of these emotions are achieved through a somewhat “chaotic” process and she usually has “an artistic crisis from time to time”.

However, the work that she produces clearly depicts her personality and unique artistic style. “I make many sketches of what I have in mind until they take shape — I will draw them quickly in order to not to lose the freshness of the line. Then I make tests of colour, texture and composition until the drawing gradually flows.”

The need for Cynthia to “do new things and experiment” has led to a large body of work, with a notable and drastic change on her Instagram account. “The problem is that you see very abrupt changes because I delete the previous drawings and you can’t see that gradual evolution, so people only see my last year of madness. Now my goal is to combine all of these experiments with a clearer and more figurative line to make a narrative story of comics.”