STATEMENT OF INTENT

 

 

I have always been better at communicating through words than through art—my artistic journey has been an effort not only to improve my visual communication to reach the level of my linguistic communication, but to ultimately find a form of expression that seamlessly unifies the two.

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My art’s beginning was in photorealism—replication of compositions dictated by a camera’s viewfinder. I learned to render with traditional materials; I drew portraits until they were immediately recognizable as their subjects. I learned to draw without understanding how to create a drawing. It was in 2018 that I started to experiment with abstraction and concept-based work. My works often deal with questions I have; subjects I have explored include forms of truth (as sublimity or construction), Daoism during times of crisis, anxiety and destruction of self, and Zeno’s Paradox/infinities of nothingness as the birth of all creation. I would also treat self-portraiture as a form of conceptual art, as I have found it the best way to engage with the self in both body and mind. I have neglected my pursuit of heavily conceptual art in previous years, however, to strengthen my skills in visual and narrative art-making. In 2020, I started to work digitally; this was not just a shift in medium, but marked the beginning of a very intentional study of visual principles with the aim of creating works from imagination. I shifted my focus from portraiture to figure drawing, and then to lighting and environments, with the aim to strengthen my weak areas. My ability in the latter areas is still sophomoric, but my works from imagination can now effectively communicate a plausible environment. I also dabbled in 3D sculpting in Blender, and 2D animation in Adobe Photoshop and After Effects.

 

Through all my artistic pursuits, I have continued to practice fiction writing, and this is likely why as I learned to create artworks from imagination, I found a fascination with scripting, storyboarding, and graphic novels. It’s a little silly that this wasn’t a preoccupation of mine to begin with, but I am glad to have honed my drawing and storytelling abilities so that I may embark upon this pursuit with greater confidence. I am unsure if I would continue to pursue this thread of visual and linguistic storytelling with animation; I should like to build my confidence in this area first.

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Art is all about communication: basic principles of design, such as contrast, color, and composition, work to guide the eye to the element the artist intends the viewer to see. To convey concepts is to convey a narrative. All of these elements must work together to create an effective art piece. I aim to continue strengthening my base concepts, artistic sensibility, and narrative ability to produce artworks that communicate strikingly and meaningfully.