Memories
Since entering the semester of my final year of college here at Muhlenberg, I genuinely was stuck on how I wanted to conclude my artistic career as a student. However, I finally came to the wonderful conclusion of making my final project for the year an emphasis on embracing the inner child. With the adult world coming at me so fast with graduation, job applications, and eventually moving out on my own, I thought that there was no better way to slow down and reflect back on simpler times. I am embracing the inner child.
The best thing about art is that it can truly be whatever and look however. There are no constraints, no limits, no rules. Art is not subject to one thing, nor should it be contained by rules, and no one understands that better than little kids or, in my case, the inner child who sits dormant within me. Through collaging, screen-printing, text, and mixed media, I express these ideas.
I play around with text and color, with a touch of thick, bolded, self-drawn images. There are undertones of children’s art crafts, like collaging or playing with texture by using crayons or gluing objects on top of a screen print layer. The aesthetic is similar to images from a cartoon combined with the kind of text someone would see on a poster or the type of collage you’d see in a scrapbook. I found that most of my inspiration was found via social media (Pinterest, Instagram influencers, and online art exhibitions like MOMA or MET), as well as more iconic and well-known artists. For example, Andy Warhol’s art uses bright pops of colors and repetition of patterns via screenprint. Whereas Keith Haring was known for his thicker, bold lines and simplistic drawings of things that can potentially be viewed as complicated, like humans,
dogs, symbols, etc.
From Haring, I wanted to pull from his playfulness and bending of the rules of what “art” is considered art—thinking outside of the box. Warhol’s influence appears in my work through repetition of designs and drawing inspiration from popular culture. Combining the respected concepts that each artist shows, I create work that feels open, fun, and personable.
