Art has always been important to me.

I’ve always been a creative person and have been obsessed with making things ever since I can remember. At a young age I would draw every day, whether that would be at my grandma’s house with cheap pencils or on the street with chalk. Things haven’t changed much for me since those days, I still can’t go a proper evening just relaxing. I’m always thinking of something interesting I could make, sketching something, trying out a new technique or looking at art to be inspired by online. Because of this I’ve gone too art academy for 12 years, starting when I was 6 and graduated there. I also eventually went to art school for 3 years and finished my education there in 2020.

Through-out these classes I took in the past, the importance was mostly set on realism and bettering my skills first. I would rarely use expressive styles and spend most of those years learning anatomy, perspective, and the theoretical ways of drawing accurately. This for sure helped me draw ‘better’, but it also got me stuck in a cycle of making things that didn’t feel personal nor represented me. I felt like what I was creating was a representation of my skill, but not an expression of who I was as a person.

click on images to see more

In recent time I’ve been more focused on self-expression and finding my own style to combat this feeling. While I was deeply stuck in the restriction of my realistic art style for a while, I feel I can be proud of the progress I’ve made with finding my own touch and exploring wilder concepts outside of what I was taught. Unlearning shame for my own interest and finding people who find beauty in my art despite its unconventional look from time to time, has been a life changing journey that I will continue to follow. My art has always been deeply linked with how I represent myself towards the world. I feel there is something poetic to be said about the little girl who desperately wanted approval by making aesthetically pleasing realistic and skillful art, turning into a person who makes expressive drawings with a hope to only find the people who share that same look and interest.

My art in its current state is the manifestation of years of unlearning what I need to be and embracing what I want to be instead.

There are many themes and returning subjects in my work that feel deeply connected to who I am as a person and how I want to represent myself. The color red might be the biggest. It’s my favorite color, it’s bold, aggressive, passionate, extreme, overwhelming and a good showcase of how I feel on the inside. The fact I’m a natural redhead and already was getting called ‘red’ for it, is a bonus. I feel the color represents my soul and having it in my work feels like a type of trademark for it being mine. Whenever a person sees something in the color and tells me they thought of me when seeing it, it feels correct.

The human body and existing physically is also something I like to play around with. Bodies are complicated, and the way we feel about them even more so. My interest in uncomfortable representations of human bodies and horror art is linked with my own body image issues. I often use these types of works to vent out frustrations but also admiration. There is something so incomprehensible about being deeply uncomfortable with your own body while deeply entranced by those of others. The inability to see my own body the way I see those around me often makes me feel alien and unnatural, fearing that others see me in this ‘other’ way as well. I like playing around with these concepts, and my more emotionally loaded works are bound to have them in some capacity. Definitely an interest I will continue to develop to see what feels right for me.

In contrast, it’s also important to me to not always take my own work too seriously. Not every piece I make must obey to some ‘expression rules’ or even has to be an emotional exercise. Letting myself sometimes enjoy my work in a playful way and make stuff purely based on interest and enjoyment is liberating on a different but equally important level. Indulging myself in fan work and original character design is equally part of my unlearning shame journey as expressing my feelings has been. I don’t always want to dig into my heart to reflect on some deep issues that I process through making them visible, sometimes I want too watch a show and cosplay the character I really like.

I’ve always had a hard time seeing these more self-indulgent moments as even worth mentioning. Feeling deeply embarrassed for even spending my time on things I didn’t see as ‘real art.’ I felt like if I wasn’t making something for a deeper reason, I might as well not make anything at all. Now I understand this is a flawed and toxic way of thinking. I never thought this way about others who had similar hobbies too mine, and it was simply another manifestation of my shame. So here I am actually talking about them and showing them of after 19 years.

For the future I plan to continue this self-discovery journey of mine. It’s slow and painful, but so worth it. I’ve been more comfortable in my skin and in knowing who I am as a person. After 4 years of this ‘research’ I feel like I’m getting closer to understanding myself and how I think. It’s made it slightly easier to exist the way I want, to be my own person without burden or fear, and all thanks to the visual medium of art.

Thank you for reading.