Diana Lee
My body of work was intended to show different aspects of childhood in one’s life. Through my artworks I wanted to show the audience the ups and downs of growing up. I expressed the memories of childhood and the happiness that comes with it, as well as the difficulties many children may be going through during their times. Not everyone has the same childhood, and I wanted to explore those different topics to show the audience my findings.
In order to portray different childhood experiences, I started off by reflecting on my own childhood and certain aspects that I had growing up. This year I was allowed to do artworks from the same media, so I chose digital art. In digital art, I appreciate how there are a variety of tools to use that can help you come up with many different artworks from just one “pen”. The infinite amount of possibilities you have when creating digital art helps me to express my ideas better. One possibility that I experimented with was animation for my piece “Cloud Watching”. This piece used simple drawings to help portray the ideas I wanted to explore. Without animation, it would have been hard to portray the theme of feelings in one’s childhood, as I would have had to take an indirect approach that the audience may not understand. The artworks and their themes are used to show off the different aspects of childhood to help the audience reflect on their own.
In my exhibition, I wanted to show a progression of the emotions expressed in the artworks to go from traumatic to feelings of happiness. This all ended with an artwork that represents me and my childhood to add onto my original meaning of my artworks. This adds the idea that no matter what your childhood looked like, you will grow up to be an amazing individual. Our childhoods are something we should never forget, no matter how difficult they were to get through, because they helped us become who we are today.
Grilled Cheese Pull
Digital Mixed Media in Procreate Printed on Photo Paper
20.3 cm x 25.4 cm
This piece was inspired by Johnson Tsang and the way he molds and squishes his clay sculptures. I used this method to create a digital art piece that is used to show the effects of a divorce on a child’s mental health. The piece shows a little girl who is being stretched apart by her parents due to a divorce. Her mental health is being torn apart because the little girl is blaming herself for this happening, which can be seen in the text in the background.
Red and Blue
Digital Media in Procreate Printed on Photo Paper
20.3 cm x 25.4 cm
This piece was inspired by Ankur Patar’s digital artwork. The blobs, lines, and vibrant colors were the main points of inspiration to create this artwork. My intentions were to have an image of myself being surrounded by different blobs that incorporated different parts of my childhood. I also used colors and small icons (stars and lines) to my advantage to connect to my American and Korean culture. I used different elements to make this piece busy and detailed, yet “simple” overall.
Room of Memories
Digital Media in Procreate Printed on a Canvas
30.5 cm x 30.5 cm
This piece was inspired by a video game called “Unpacking”. I wanted to create a pixelated, isometric room that showed different aspects of an individual's childhood, just by showing various objects and decorations. I wanted to make the audience be able to find the character-defining objects and be able to make up their childhood story, similar to the game. It touches on the topic of childhood nostalgia and the feeling of walking on memory lane.
What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?
Digital Media in Procreate Printed on a Canvas
30.5 cm x 30.5 cm
In this piece, different shades of red were used to create layers. These layers reveal a child in the middle who is having their traditional Korean birthday for children that turn one year old. As the layers are added, more about the piece is revealed. My intentions for the piece were to show the pressures of societal standards on one’s childhood. The phones with the different careers on top symbolizes people wanting to know the career paths of a baby as soon as they are born.
Cloud Watching
Digital Animation on Procreate in QR Code
47 cm x 37 cm
This piece was inspired by an animation created by Alex Kunchevsky. His simple animations inspired me to create an animation that represents childhood imagination, so my mind immediately went to cloud watching. During this activity, kids can look at a random cloud and imagine it to be anything they want. Therefore, this animation is a cartoon cloud that changes based on the child’s imagination, which contrasts the realistic background that represents the adults only seeing the reality.