Zodiac Girls And Fade Away Girl

In my junior year, I switched my art course from modern dance to visual arts, and I have truly benefited from this change. While I do still participate in dance, visual art has always been a passion of mine, and since receiving professional instruction, I have learned the true potential of my work. When I began studying art, I was fascinated by digital and traditional illustration; comic books, animated movies, and children’s books have always interested me, and I wanted to try my hand at this work. However, I was the only student pursuing this type of art, and was subsequently required to do a lot of research on my own. Unfortunately, as I did my individual search to find inspiration, I noticed a distinct lack of popular art that portrayed people of color at all, especially in a classical, beautiful way. I struggled to relate to most of what I was learning about. …show more content…
This manifested itself into two projects: “Zodiac Girls” (a project in which I used colored pencils and brush markers to hand illustrate personas for each zodiac sign, all of them as women of color) and “Fade Away Girls” (a project loosely based on Cole Phillips’ Fade Away Girl art in which I digitally painted portraits attempting to highlight the unique beauty of women of various ethnic backgrounds).
Since last year, I have grown even more as an artist. I have worked on numerous additional projects, portraying the beauty and struggle I encounter as a woman and a person of color; my art has become my chance to create a narrative that I relate to.
I realize that, as an artist, I have the power to connect to others through my work, especially while working in fields such as digital media and design. This feeling, this joy that I get when making art is something that I hope to carry with me through college and into my professional