I’m a huge fan of animation, television, and movies! Growing up, my family didn’t have the money to go out and do a lot of the exciting things that more well off families could afford. So a lot of my free time was spent enjoying animated movies and a few, at the time, obscure animes I could get my hands on from the public library, such as Sailor Moon, one of my biggest inspirations! I grew to love the genres of fantasy and adventure, because they helped me to escape the tough reality of well…life!
With life though, I grew up and began to experience and learn about the society around me. With said experience and knowledge came many realizations, including how I’m directly and indirectly affected by prejudice. These realizations caused me to become dissatisfied with the representation of minorities and marginalized groups within most entertainment media. If you weren’t white, heterosexual, or a man, you pretty much got what felt like impressions of yourself being shown on screen. Very rarely was the representation something worth writing home about and it made watching a lot of my favorite shows or movies more depressing to watch once I realized the unfortunate pattern. Then depression quickly turned into frustration. Why, in the overwhelmingly large pool of movies and tv shows, were there so little authentic or genuine representation of people like me? Why was it that when we did show up we were simply a token side character, a punchline, or an afterthought that people can easily forget about or even despise? Why did so many representations of us feel more like the writers filling in a quota than them writing a fully developed and understood person? After a while, I stopped asking these questions once I realized what the answers were. But with those answers, I became determined. Rather than relying on pre-established institutions to create the stories I craved, I decided to make my own.
My artwork is an accumulation of story ideas and concepts I’ve been developing for the past few years. In my stories, I want the characters I create to be embraced for who they are and not simply for the groups they represent or the differences that set them apart from the majority. I hope to make stories that’ll help people escape like I did when I was kid, but I also want to make stories that will help us all connect and understand one another. I want my characters’ existence and attributes to be something that not only can many individuals relate to, but be something that others can be emphatic towards. At the end of the day, I want my characters to be seen as people. People who have struggles, fears, strengths, weaknesses, and bonds with the people and world around them.
Education
University of Alabama in Huntsville with a Bachelor of Fine Arts
Majored in Animation and Painting
Minor in English
If you have any questions go ahead and message me below!
