During my journey as an artist, I’ve realized that my dream career is to be a professional illustrator. I’m drawn toward illustration because my goal is to make observation-based artwork that uses strong imagery to convey an important message, which is a large aspect of illustration. I love to create artwork that deals with ideas of mental illness, as well as work that speaks out about social issues such as animal rights, women’s rights, gay rights, and racial equality, as these are all things that I feel very strongly about. I want to put this type of artwork out into the world as an illustrator because it’s important to me that I use my artistic voice as a form of protest to speak out for those who can’t fight for themselves; I believe that as an artist, I have the power and duty to use my art to bring about social change, and illustration is the perfect medium to do so.

I created this piece in an attempt to push my abilities more than ever before. I wanted to paint a relatively simple image, while putting it across in a way that was still striking and interesting. Therefore, I chose to paint a portrait at 36” wide by 48” tall, where almost the entire composition is occupied just by a face. I’m very interested in playing with the idea of beauty, and I wanted to explore that in this painting as well. Everyone has a different perception of what is beautiful, and I personally find the most beauty in faces that are visually interesting to me, rather than what the media tends to push as “beautiful.” I also tend to see certain qualities of beauty in characters and other visual elements that are generally associated with the horror genre. While these may not be beautiful in the traditional sense, as in “pretty,” “delicate,” et cetera, I feel that they can be alluring, fascinating, and visually pleasing in their own sense. A somewhat androgynous woman with ruddy cheeks and dark circles and blood running down her chin such as the one I have painted may not usually be considered beautiful, but I felt that certain elements of the image – the fairness of the skin, the way the light refracts through the irises, the saturated color of the blood, the glistening of the blood and skin – were dazzling, and would create a wonderful painting. In recognizing this beauty, I feel that I imbued it into the image while painting it, making it clear to the viewer as well. In painting this image at such a large scale, I wanted to confront the viewer with bold, unapologetic beauty in an image where they don’t expect to find it.