Good art is about communicating ideas, but also your feelings...and you can't do that unless you understand your own way of being in the world, how things make you respond, and what sort of response your art will evoke in other people. This applies not only to visual artist, but to other fields as well.
Writing, acting, music, film...they're all about conveying information in non logical ways, and to do that you need to understand yourself and be willing to let people see the inner self that others try to keep hidden. Revealing yourself in your art takes courage, and some people never get there, despite practicing and becoming technically skilled in their craft.
THE ARTIST
I was born an artist so there was always something inside of me that knew this is what I wanted to do with the rest of my life...I was just so convinced that whatever I did in the future had to involve something creative in some way because that's the one thing I have always been so passionate about that just made me so incredibly happy. When I was 6 years old, while all my classmates were drawing stick figures as their self portraits, there I was....sitting at my desk....drawing detailed images of what I felt I looked like...I have always been the type of person that pays a lot of attention to detail, I think the secret to creating realistic looking images is being really aware and just noticing even the smallest things around you in the real world; where the shadows on things go when the light hits them from certain angles, how the puddles on the road reflect their surroundings after it rains...all of these things matter..
Even though I have the capability of doing different styles of art, photo manipulation designs are honestly what I love to do the most. I've been a graphic designer for over 16 years now. I was always very into landscapes, portraits and graffiti, and now I combine stock photographs that people typically overlook, with some 3d elements when I need specific angles in order to create new still + motion images that are a lot more interesting to look at.
When it comes to my work, I have always had this crazy obsession with science fiction & horror, so naturally I was very drawn to creating art based around those post-apocalyptic/ dystopian/ horror/ sci-fi subjects…Even though a lot of people find the dystopian theme to be dark & depressing, I feel like it really allow us to reflect on the harsh realities of our world, and on all these conditions that are kind of difficult to confront head-on. Sci-fi and dystopian art just makes you really question the things that are happening & the affect that all these things have on us & our future...I love that in a dystopian world nothing is perfect. It’s just raw, and very real….
When it comes to my past, I’ve definitely experienced a lot of disturbing, unresolved trauma since childhood…and these things have opened my eyes to a really dark side of the world that isn’t as beautiful as people want to make you believe it is. These situations that I’ve kept buried within myself, from such a young age, have led me to fall in and out of depression even more so now as an adult, and that can at times FEEL like the end of the world, this is a big reason why most of the people I choose to use in my work are put in these environments where they’re facing something scary, mysterious or unknown & why they look as if they’re wrestling w/ some form of mental trauma as well.
Even though there’s gloominess to some of the pieces I create, there’s still those I make that DO offer a sense of hope…that there’s still some kind of light shining at the end of the tunnel….I guess you can say it really just depends on my mood that day which route my work will even go. I feel like the more art you do, the more you start to figure out who you are & what works in your pieces & what doesn’t & within the past year and 1/2 I’ve grown a lot as a person…as an artist…& the things I want to show through my new work I'm planning on releasing now have also evolved a lot because of it.
