Jesenia Garcia
Artist Statement
It first started when I was younger, I would draw on the walls more than the average child. And ever since then, I still occasionally draw on the walls but now I have transitioned into creating paintings and digital works. At first art started as a hobby, I never really thought of pursuing a degree in art. When I was in high school, I decided to switch my elective from art to theatre. As I was switching, my art teacher at the time had told me that if I ever wanted to switch back to art, I could take college level art classes, since my skill fit the level. I then entered UTRGV in 2019 initially pursuing Criminal Justice with an Art minor, and I just became more excited for my minor classes rather than my major classes. I thought that it wasn’t ideally right, so I decided to make art my major. Since then, I never really considered myself an artist, until I started creating more works and learning certain techniques through painting and using the Adobe apps. Now I can't imagine my life without pursuing an Art degree, I feel like it would be not as exciting compared to now
One aspect that I hold as dear importance to myself and through my artwork is the concept of dreams. I have always been fascinated by dream interpretation and how the brain can set a movie setting in your head as you sleep. I also love hearing about other people’s dreams as well, such as certain motifs that we all experience or that a few of us get to see as well. To me, it is important to capture the surrealism within a work, that one object or characteristic that is outside of reality, being captured within reality. I have held this concept within my artwork, for a while to the point that I avoid drawing people or animals in a realistic setting. If I were to picture a person in a realistic way, I would use other colors or input some sort of pattern in the background.
Whenever I face artist’s block, I just start scribbling and drawing onto the paper. I look at the lines that are created and try to find something that I can create with those lines. Like what I can add onto the lines or colors that can be used. I try not to think too much of what I am going to do. I just do random motions with a fresh mind set and see where the drawings take us. I also use Pinterest for references a lot of the times. One thing I do love to look for on Pinterest are different font types, and the way that a poster or artwork is set up.
