My creativity is only limited to your imagination.
There’s a quote attributed to Buddha “I am not the first Buddha who came upon Earth, nor shall I be the last.” It’s the same lens I see artists through. There’s an abundance of creative expression in the world to make your mark. I reflect on the many who have already left a mark, for inspiration, education and as Carl Sagan once famously said “you have to know the past to understand the present.” As such I think an important component of my work is derived from art history. These influences include art from Jean-Léon Gérôme, John William Godward, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, and many more spanning from the fifteenth to nineteenth century. Furthermore my work is also inspired by written works of fiction including mythology, Arthurian fantasy, gothic, and science fiction.
While art history plays an important role in my creative process, my day to day life is one of the greatest influences in the type of work I create. From watching Hayao Miyazaki’s movies, reading marvel comics and manga, watching anime, to playing Yu-Gi-Oh card games as a kid in the 90s. I should also add I was lucky to grow up with the emergence of new technology in the early 2000’s playing PlayStation, and seeing CGI like never before in films such as Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Avatar and many more including Disney and DreamWorks. It all lead me to pursue a degree in fine art.
Often we’re told find your “style” and stick to it! But your “style” is just your skill set growing, your voice of reason finding out what works and what doesn’t. It wasn’t until I’ve decided to make a career out of it that I’ve come to the realization that art is dynamic. Art and artists alike are constantly changing over time, often leading each other to unexpected results: the best way to approach art is to evolve with it, experiment, observe it by accepting the inability to fully understand its logic and adapt to new ways of producing art.