Chat us through the process of how you created your piece. How did the manifesto influence your ideas for the piece?
When going through initial thoughts on what I could make for this project, I was highly motivated by the manifesto and looked at ways I could make it show through my work, while staying true to the nature of characteristics that my work has been recognised for. What I landed on is quite straightforward, it’s two women. The next thoughts I had were how to make it less straightforward and how to focus on the connection between the women that I wanted to portray. What I wound up doing is connecting them to a cherry stem, I used my typical colour pallet of pinks, nudes and reds. I don’t get to do this often when illustrating people, but I like to make them a little unrealistic, whilst making sure to include a bit of detail, that way it feels more real and approachable. To me, it’s less direct and it’s more about the art rather than trying to figure out who the person is.
Why did the Power Project resonate with you?
The Power Project resonates with me because
A: I’m a creative and
B: I’m a woman.
How did you find the confidence to express yourself through your art?
Finding confidence to express myself through my art has been a long road of trial and error mostly. As a human being I’ve changed a lot over and over again since beginning to make art, which I did at a very young age. Every personal change naturally began to influence my art, so the confidence relating to my work came with confidence relating to myself. Once I reached the point in my life where I liked what I was making and believed it resonated with who I was as a person, that was enough for me.
Empowerment to me means confidence and believing in yourself.
Why do you think it is important to share and express yourself through your art?
I think expression through art is important for two reasons: the first is it help artist to express themselves and a lot of times the viewers may not understand exactly what the artist was trying to portray, which to me is the point of art. It’s whatever the audience makes it to be, whatever is it to them. This brings me to reason number two: which is that it helps the audience to relate to your art on their own terms, it becomes whatever it is they make out of it.
What does empowerment mean to you?
Empowerment to me means confidence and believing in yourself. I feel empowered if I know that I’ve done something that will truly make a difference in someone’s life.
Who inspires you?
Who inspires me, my Mum— my number one inspiration. She’s the strongest, smartest, most beautiful women I’ve ever met and continues to impress and inspire me every living day.
What is the best piece of advice you can offer to other women?
The best piece of advice I can offer is: really take time to get to know yourself, um and once you do, carry on doing you, as long as you stay true to yourself and do what you really want to be doing. Don’t let anyone or anything stop you or tell you otherwise, and you won’t look back with regrets.
If you were able to change one thing in the world what would it be?
If I could change one thing in the world is the hardest question out of all of these because we live in 2019 where there are just too many things to change in the world to just be able to pick one.
