I have been doing art for as long as I can remember. As an only child, it helped me endure my periods of boredom and loneliness and eventually developed into a therapeutic medium, a way to spill my opinions, ideas, and emotions like one would into a journal. Because of this, my art has focused on a myriad of topics ranging from my own mental health to global warming to the effect of technology on society. I enjoy exploring emotion in my subjects, and how I can capture and amplify that emotion to make a more captivating piece. I am always exploring new ways to convey these aforementioned themes, frequently using new mediums or styles that I am sometimes not yet comfortable with.

This past summer, I spent six weeks at RISD’s pre-college program, where I became quickly infatuated with printmaking. I was also able to truly appreciate the feeling of being surrounded by other creatives, who understood and collaborated with me. I’m looking forward to explorations like this, where I can work with other artists and discover new passions, while I am in college.

Submerged (Self Portrait)

Currently, many of my pieces explore my relationship with childhood. Innocence and experience; life, loss, and rebirth. In my mind, I traverse the pressure to grow up quickly to fit this rapidly moving world, stifling playfulness in order to make room for order and obedience—observing through the eyes of someone who’d prefer to be young, imaginative, and carefree forever. I am also incredibly inspired by nature, where I spend much of my time, and who was like a “sister” to me growing up. Through my art, I often explore the human impact on nature, as well as its beautiful intricacies. This brings me to my hopes for the future, for the combination of nature and art plays a substantial role.

In my future work, I hope to merge my passions outside of art, such as languages, human engineering, and natural sciences, with my creativity and artistic background, to create functional pieces. Although I have had my art shown in a few small exhibitions, and have won a scholastic gold key for my work, I am less interested in a future in the fine art and gallery/museum world. I would prefer to create works that impact our planet and its people more directly than sparking emotion or protest. For example, I could create a more sustainable type of fabric and make clothes with it, or design a way to filter pollutants out of water sources with multipurpose materials such as textiles. I could make medical illustrations of endangered species or mimic the patterns of bee hives to create buildings. I think there is so much that artistic design and expression can be used for that is so overlooked in society, and I think it’s time to change that.