Artist Statement

Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, and sometimes Indigo—These are the colors interpreted as visible light, each eliciting a different emotion — a rainbow. Using the rainbow as inspiration, I have created a series of artworks that demonstrate emotional, otherworldly stories that entice and motivate creation, imagination, and comfort. 

 

As a writer and an illustrator, I have always been drawn to telling fantastical stories through vibrant, colorful works of art.  I use marker and colored pencil—two very different yet complimentary mediums—to craft my work. One is wet and one is dry, but both provide the detail I look for. The fast-paced blending and drying process of markers versus the delicate nature of colored pencils give each piece a sense of harmony. 

 

This set of drawings demonstrates the world-building of the planet Slomaria — a fictional alien world I’ve been crafting through my artworks for many years — inhabited by rainbow-colored aliens called Slomarians. Each drawing acts as a window into their world. In the green drawing for example: The central character, named Hyu, is exploring a creek full of ancient statues that hint at the history of Slomaria as well as the surrounding creatures that vaguely resemble Hyu.

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This drawing, along with the other artworks, are linked together through the central lithograph, that depicts a character that can be seen across the series. This character, named Luciteria, is the god or creator of Slomaria, and acts as the world’s guardian angel. I chose lithography to emphasize her divinity. The series isn’t meant to tell a story with a beginning and end but is meant to entice and create wonder around Slomaria and its inhabitants’ relation to the rainbow.

 

These artworks play into illustration and visual storytelling as if they were ripped from a graphic novel. By utilizing framing and organization, they are elevated into a different space, free from the confinement of a book. As the viewer’s eyes move from one piece to another, curious about Slomaria and its many colorful inhabitants, I hope they are reminded of the artist that dwells within, and how they too can create wonders from the world of color around them.