BA, Art (Community Arts)
Artist Statement
One of the main goals of my practice is to destigmatize emotional vulnerability as a weakness and encourage others to see the strengths required for being vulnerable with themselves and others. Using painting, drawing, sculpture and writing prompts, I explore the complex emotions that I feel in relation to the world around me through creating emotionally intimate abstract artworks. The creative process has always held incredible healing potential for me, and the joys that I take away from the process are something that I’ve long desired to share with others. Words and poetry intertwine themselves into my artistic process as I unpack complex memories and feelings associated with language. By focusing on how my mind and body react to external stimuli like words, I am able to channel the range of emotions I may be feeling into line, shape, color and texture. The people and places that we surround ourselves with greatly impact the ways we interpret with the world, and I hope in my future practice that I am able to work with people to help them have a greater understanding of their own experience in relation to the community around them.
To view more of my work, both completed and in-process, visit my Instagram page https://www.instagram.com/kbru_arts/.
COVID-19 Adaptations:
Due to COVID-19 and all of the restrictions that came with it, I had to significantly modify this project in order to complete it. Initially, I planned to hold public gatherings at which I would facilitate discussion about how each person responds to the emotions fear, love, joy and pain. Instead, I created an online survey that prompted participants to describe, using shapes, colors, and textures, how they commonly experience each emotion. I then worked with the responses to create compositions for four paintings, each corresponding with one emotion. With just under 100 participants filling out the survey, I got 5x the amount of participation I was anticipating, had I been able to hold an in-person workshop. With so much uncertainty and chaos in the world right now, I found that people enjoyed sharing this survey with friends and family, many of whom expressed gratitude for being able to take a moment and think abstractly about their own feelings. In times of such turmoil, it’s more important now than ever for people to look inwards and check in with their own emotional state before they put that energy back into the world.
