Each one of my pieces tends to be a way for me to express the way I am feeling to viewers. As someone who has faced challenging obstacles throughout my life, art has been a way for me to express how I feel and heal. I use my experiences to create art for others to enjoy and ponder the emotions portrayed in each of my artworks.
“Chaotic Coral” was originally a directed assignment where I was tasked with creating an abstract ceramic vessel conveying an emotion. During the time I created this piece, my grandfather had just passed away and I was wrestling with many emotions. I used color theory to convey my sadness, anger, and disgust with the world at the time of his passing. I used a wavy shape to create a sense of instability in this artwork as well as a stippling-like technique on some sections that make some viewers uneasy.
“Mountainous Montana” was a directed piece with the parameters to be inspired by David Hockney, and to play with perspective like the famous artist himself. I wanted to illustrate a place that held emotional value for me, so I chose the mountains that I woke up to every morning while I was attending a camp for children suffering from cancer. This photo was taken one morning outside of my camp and I was greatly inspired by the beautiful mountains of Montana, so I chose to expand upon that with my painting.
“Shattered Woman” is one of my self-directed pieces encapsulating my discomfort in my own body. I chose to elongate the limbs to emphasize my dislike for my abnormally long arms and legs and also chose to put the figure in the fetal position as it conveys the feeling of being unsafe or uncomfortable. I chose to lie the figure in a bed of broken glass to represent the feeling of pain and suffering, much like the feelings I have each day in my own body.
“Fighting the dominant narrative” was a loosely guided project where I needed to illustrate a dominant narrative I face daily. I chose to represent the negative and rather outdated ideology that women must be short, as a young woman who is six-foot-four and constantly battered with this idea I wanted to create something that challenged this narrative. This piece is inspired by Keith Haring as many of his artworks challenge offensive ideologies. In this artwork, there is a tall figure wearing a red heel holding up insults and other hurtful comments I hear on a daily
“Continuous line contour self-portrait” was a piece that my teacher at the time had us do, and proved to be quite challenging. The task was to create a self-portrait with one continuous line without picking up my pen. This work taught me to observe my subject intently and get every minute detail. After inking in myself I then went back in and chose to add some patterns using an analogous color scheme, I chose blue, green, and purple to emphasize the emotion of feeling trapped in a small space, there is also an invisible border to help further this feeling. I chose a slightly darker hue of blue at the top to convey pressure coming down on me and a lighter blue at the bottom. All in all, I enjoyed creating this piece and experimenting with continuous line contour.
Each artwork has challenged me to push the creative boundaries and create art that has a powerful message behind each piece.
