Artist Statement
Social Justice Posters
For the majority of this year, everyone was living life in a state of worry, caution and fear. One thing I quickly learned through all this was to live in faith as opposed to living in fear. When I first saw the photo of two people holding hands, I knew this was a display of unity. I loved how the colors white and yellow contrasted; the color pop was beautiful, and I could work a strong message around it. At first I just slapped a few shapes and called it a day. But, as I worked more on it, I thought about how my elements could compliment my placement and theme, so I decided to make this a call to action was to live in faith and not in fear. I also researched the color dark yellow on Google and found that it means ‘dull or dingy’, almost exactly how some of us may have felt these past months. But on a brighter note, I'm just glad most of us pulled through it and made it the best opportunity to work on ourselves and develop over the time.
I wanted to empower ladies and show how important their essence is. Out of all pictures I considered, this photograph stood out the most to show a message of protecting and caring for yourself. The hand movement and direct eye contact with the audience is very intimate. At first, my slogan was "Protect Your Energy;" however, it did not correlate well with a theme for social justice, so I decided to address mental health instead. I believe the background of flowers and plants goes well with the word “life,” and the upward position of the hands flows with “Uplift.” I left the term “Self-Care” on it’s own line, because sometimes you just need to remove yourself from the chaos around you, and immerse yourself in the things that make life worth living and now or the things you look forward to in the future.
Families should not be broken up and separated by ICE. It is heartbreaking and infuriating to see this happen in a country that talks so much about freedom. It would have been easy to highlight the dark sides of this social justice issue in my design, but I decided to show a positive light that suggests what this country "could be."
Inclusive Stock Photography
The Inclusive Stock Photography project was designed to address the scarcity of people of color, multicultural people, and LGBTQ+ people in commercial stock photography by creating professional-quality images of these underrepresented people in a variety of everyday settings, including romantic and platonic relationships, family, and communities.