Artist Statement - Rough Draft

Describe yourself in one word.

I always had difficulty responding to that sentence. A person’s mind and personality is so complex and could never be described completely with one word.  My work comments on who someone truly is versus what other people see and also the complexity of personality.

My paintings of headless, minimalistic figures question whether or not we can really know someone if we can’t see what is going on inside their mind. All that is visible is the bare minimum, the outline of the figure – the rest is left as a mystery. For my digital work [insert title here], there are clips of a figure dancing, but also ones that are abstract shapes. At a glance, that’s all they are – abstract shapes. Those shapes are actually the same figure doing the same movements, but in those clips they look completely different. In different situations, people show different sides of their personality.

This year, my digital work has greatly influenced the direction of my 2-D work.  Experimenting with rotoscoping to create the projected animations caused the shift in my style for painting. Due to my digital exploration, I no longer focused on making objects realistic; instead, I became interested in minimalism. I was also inspired by various title sequences for movies and graphic designers such as Saul Bass.

I first became interested in digital media because of my love for telling stories.  Animation and film allow me to combine story telling with art and instead of telling a story as a single snapshot in time, I am able to tell it through moving images. This year my digital work has transformed into portraying more of an abstract story due to my interest in motion graphics. 

Even though I love creating digital art, a paintbrush will always be one of my favorite tools.  One of the most influential people in my life is my mom who is also an artist.  Because of her, art has been a huge part of who I am for as long as I can remember.