Artist Bio

Art has always been my thing. Some girls were good at soccer. Some were good at math. I was considered good at art. While art has always been a large part of my life, I feel I am just beginning to understand it and see its true potential. After this final, I will have completed my degree from Chapman as well as my art minor. While I have enjoyed my art classes here, I am also very excited to make art outside of a classroom setting. Wherever my path may take me, I know that art will always be a part of my life and something that brings me more joy than any other activity. 

Many things influence me, but there are few key influences that I always find my way back to. I like to work primarily with the human figure, particularly with portraiture. Typically, most of the figures I draw are females seeing as this is something I heavily identify with. I also take a lot of inspiration from fashion imagery. Growing up, my mother worked in fashion and we always had plenty of issues of Vogue spread throughout the house. I would rip out pages of the magazines and tape them on my wall, treating them like little pieces of art. As I’ve grown older, I still draw a lot of inspiration from fashion and have gained even more respect for fashion photography. Another one of my big influences is spirituality and religion. I attended Catholic school for 8 years of my life and while I don’t consider myself a religious person, I am definitely a spiritual one. I love the sacred feeling present in depictions of saints or other religious figures. I am always eager to learn about new religions, gods, and practices. Recently, I have been very interested in Hinduism, Greek mythology and more spiritual practices, such as the healing powers of crystals.

For my final series, I wanted to go back to my artistic roots, with a slight twist. Like many other artists, I started with pencil. Even as a kid and a teenager, I loved doing pencil portraits of people I saw in magazines, but when I got to college I felt that this wasn’t good enough. Many classes discouraged pencil as a medium for a final piece. My use of figures from fashion photography was even more looked down upon. While other people painted abstract things, I enjoyed painting portraits, but was typically looked down upon. Seeing as this is my last art final at Chapman ever, I wanted to create something that I was proud of, regardless of whether other people considered it fine art enough. While I am most comfortable with pencil drawings, I have recently gotten into other elements like wood and collage. I wanted to showcase my growth throughout my art career at college by also integrating these elements. I was influenced by artists such as Elle Wills and Christine Kim for this series.