From Ashes to Brilliance
As part of the Digital & Interactive Media Production program at my college, it's a requirement to take their capstone class which involves working together to create an exhibit, but also be in charge of your own exhibit within the group one. I had a blast participating and collaborating with my fellow peers.
Below are some highlights from the event. Enjoy!!
ARTIST STATEMENT
As a mixed Malaysian-Chinese, Puetro Rican, and non-binary person who embraces their inner and external feminine everything, my art showcases me as an individual and has an eternal hope to inspire others. In my work there lies deeper meanings behind every meticulous decision. In order to show the kind of person I am, aspire to be, and encourage the people around me I develop characters and stories that are very specific to their particular needs. Whether most or some of my characters have a backstory or not they serve a purpose: to explore, embrace, and appreciate the human soul through an anthropomorphic lens; because sometimes animals can be more human and remind us of lessons we should always keep at our forefront in order to evolve into better beings.
Every one of my personal works begins with a series of questions. “Who should my next fursona be?” “Who are they?”, and “What defines and makes them special?” In every instance of myself, I always asked myself what form my main fursona should take on out of the many they have, and I used to draw them all the time. Nowadays I started asking varying critical thinking questions on who I am as a person and what parts of myself make up my soul. Inspired by individual or blended parts that make up who I am and the people that uplift me I made my soul in my vision.
“I am soft and sensitive, I am kind, I am warm.”
“But what else am I?”
“I pray to God that I be humbled in every way.”
“I am a bold Queer Christian!”
“I am inviolable!”
I started dreaming and thinking in the world that I had created in my head. Then suddenly an idea forms and flows onto my digital paper, the foundations laid out in a sketch staring gently back at me. Waiting for me to decide what kind of individual they will become. From there I imagine the color scheme and how the subject’s hair should look. What kind of eyes the subject will have; will they be kind or angry eyes. I also ponder on what specific parts will have a symbolic meaning.
That’s how SakuraLee was born eight years ago.