World War 2 Propaganda Posters

Throughout my time spent creating in high school and college, my work has often focused upon aspects of myself or the outside world, specifically having to do with influential movements like Romanticism, Impressionism, Symbolism, and Naturalism or Realism in art history. I have previously delved into subjects such as my ancestry, in which I expressed myself through self-portraits inspired by aspects of the style of Neoclassicism with subtle influences of Jan van Eyck, a naturalist painter, and of Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, a neoclassical portrait painter with a Rococo color pallet. Similarly, I have previously explored themes of the immorality and injustice of victim-blaming regarding sexual assault through textile banners and painted posters repudiating the common misattributions of blame. For these works, I had employed techniques from a myriad of inspiration: photography, suffragette banners, and American World War 2 propaganda posters.

However, my creative interests and influences have shifted from mostly Romanticism, Impressionism, Symbolism, Realism, and Neoclassicism into inspiration from Expressionism, Futurism, Photorealism, and especially Social Realism. Social Realism was used as critical realism, which drew attention to the socio-political issues of the working class and critiqued the power structures behind these conditions. I similarly hope to use this as my fundamental creative vision and inspiration heading forward, to call into question current social-political issues and unjust inequities in today’s world. Specifically, I would like to call into question the double standards based upon gender, the popularity of rape culture, the massive problems regarding consumerism and fast fashion, the global impacts of climate change/killing the earth, lack of sustainability, and ill-placed nationalism versus patriotism in America’s political and social climate. Thus, I wish to explore injustices in societal norms as well as excepted aspects of society that should be abolished or changed.

Therefore, what is currently fueling my creative connections are matters which are close to my heart, specifically revealing or subtly commenting on the parts of society which are undeniably problematic but often minimized or even touted as unimportant. Additionally, in the future, I aim to create an impact on the work’s relationship to the viewer with an end goal of providing a chance to challenge one’s own existing perceptions, perspectives, and assumptions. By expressing the injustices through art rather than speech, I can subtly rally for a fairer reality, for genders, races, people, society, and our natural world. Similarly, I can add my voice to the cry of unheard women, unheard victims of the systems, and raise awareness for issues permeating our very existence. Art has always been how we all share our thoughts and ideas. As a platform, visual art can speak to someone who would not otherwise hear. And my intentions for the future are to reach out through visual means to others, rather than verbally.

Although I have not yet quite committed fully to how I shall pursue my artistic career, I have no doubt that my career will be based and centered around the creation of pieces, as well as inclusion in artistic communities. Suffice it to say: the details around my future are vague, but my artistic endeavors, non-negotiable.

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