Sirena Pearl’s Art Gallery. The displayed sections include pieces ranging from 2018 – after graduating high school – to the present. For past work, click on the Archive section. Medium represents the vehicle in the delivery of artwork. Therefore, many of the various media galleries include complementary subjects and themes. Each section shows my exploration of mediums that include: Drawings, Paintings, Photography, Animation, and Digital art. I specifically curated these sections to highlight different styles and techniques in each medium.
Carnival: was a self-portrait I made in my senior year of high school. In 2018 I drew many grotesque, theatrical portraits. I was looking to find my individualism in my art and future as I tackled with depression.
Dream 1- Tsunami: My first story driven animation. Using Krita, I animated my reoccurring tsunami nightmares.
Samuel: At the beginning of the pandemic, I made a goal to improve my pet portraits. Initially, I wanted to improve the commission most asked for. I comprised this video in my portfolio as these pet portraits encompassed the prevalence of the art I made during the beginning of the pandemic. Around 2021 I finally broke out of this niche spell of focus. For a while, I was embarrassed that I spent a decent portion of a year doing drawings that felt more like a craft than an art.
Recently, I saw a gorgeous film about the artist Louis Wain. He drew psychedelic cats as an unconscious coping mechanism for his increasing schizophrenia. I recognized that my pet portraits were similar. Making these portraits felt like an escape from reality during the pandemic. I was able to distract myself with the small details of the pets while avoiding the uncertainty around me. I am now thankful for using these pets portraits as therapy but growing strong enough to break away when they were no longer a need.
Mural: In 2019 I painted a mural I hadn’t planned out. It was a whim and experimentation of what it felt like to paint on my bedroom walls. I wanted to redo this project but have a plan. At the beginning of 2021, I began writing ideas of what I envisioned for my bedroom wall.
During the time of planning, I immersed myself in historical art symbolism. I wrote down a list of symbols used in Christian art, The Four Humors, Vanitas, Memento Mori’s, Myths, and other forms of art and literature to encompass in my mural. I centered my mural around the rebirth of one’s identity. After planning the symbols, I measured and gridded my wall to see how much space I had. I then played out with several compositions on photoshop.
Originally I wanted to leave the background white, but I’m grateful I chose not to. I think giving the wall gradients of colors added to the surrealism and enabled a unification of the symbols. Nine months later, my bedroom wall had saturated colors and symbolism.
Binocular Vision: Just before bed, as a kid, I would simultaneously try to concentrate on two objects at once. I would attempt one eye on the window, one eye on my feet. My eyes would switch between points rapidly until I developed a mild headache. I later learned that if I had eyes like a chameleon, I would lack the ability to focus on details. Adjusting perspectives is inherently a human trait.
In my composition, I incorporated a reference of a distorted head to a favorite art piece, “The Ambassadors” by Hans Holbein. Looking at The Ambassadors at first glance, one generally misses the malformed skull. After a second glimpse, the bones look like an odd blur. After changing the viewer’s physical perspective, viewing the obscure object looks like a painted skull, a memento mori. If we did not change our perspective, we would never grow and view hidden details (visually and metaphorically). My piece incorporates a chaotic view of multiple perspectives of the same bodies, objects, and obscurities.
Binocular Vision was my first gallery winning piece since graduating high-school. It won 1st place in the Changing Perspectives National Juried Exhibit in the gallery underground.