Resilient Spirits

Through this project, I wanted to capture the resilient spirit of children. The inspiration for this project came from my study abroad trip to Guatemala where I met so many amazing children who have encountered many difficult life experiences, including poverty, abuse, racism or adolescent pregnancy. In addition to that trip, I have also had the opportunity to work with children who are homeless, discriminated against or forgotten about here at home. Sometimes it is obvious that they are hurting or have experienced trauma, but sometimes they are excellent at hiding it. I wanted to capture this idea in my paintings; that you cannot always look at a child and know what they have been through, yet they have so much potential to lead fantastic lives. I love seeing that in them and I want to work with them one day as an art therapist to help bring that out. I chose to paint in a textured and expressive style because this topic is one that I am very emotional and passionate about. I created compositions for all of these paintings which put the children in the center of the canvases because they are the main subjects of this work. I want the viewer’s focus to be on them before focusing on their surroundings. I used a variety of colors to represent both sides of these children’s experiences; darker colors to show the struggles and brighter, warmer colors to show the hope and potential I see in them