Artist Statement

This is the artist statement I have written - an attempt to summate my reasons for creating my film:

I’ve learned fairly viscerally this past year how our time on earth is limited, and that when all is said and done nothing is really guaranteed for anyone.  All that we can guarantee is what we hold on to, cherish, and hold close, right now, before something else happens.  I aim to take on questions of faith and certainty in my artwork from what I’ve learned about wellness.

I enjoy delving into where logic reaches its ends, taking on topics like science and religion and portraying them visually.  To a degree, when it comes to both of those large fields, there are concrete aspects as well as theoretical aspects that we have to take into account when engaging with them.

These topics have become important to me mainly due to physical and mental health issues that I have had to deal with this past year – and where the medical system had failed me in terms of finding answers.  Thankfully, this came at a very interesting time in my life.

I had already been realizing these past few years, with an approaching adulthood, that there was something more I wanted to express past the quiet, gentle, mild-mannered version of myself I became so comfortable being in front of others.  In trying to decipher the middle ground between that projected outer image and my inner turmoil, I created art. 

Thus, my art became a means of expressing that inner self while feeling the immensity of how limited our time on earth is.  I’ve since seen my artwork take on more of a dramatic tone, which is a change from my usual upbeat, sporty expressions.  While I strongly embrace this change, I don’t necessarily put my previous artistic style behind me as it is what got me here.  The plan for my grad film, in its very beginnings, featured a storyline of a boy wanting to play football.  The further I pushed the story, the further I saw that the emotions weren’t true to how I felt.  In a sense I felt like I was lying to myself, knowing that there was a lot more that I wanted to say.  From there, I began embarking on my current route, along the way learning more about myself than I ever have.

Filmmaking lets me make a statement that doesn’t happen in the interactions I have casually with others.  On top of that, the medium of animation allows me to bring characters to life that otherwise wouldn’t exist physically.  With my artwork, the inner self that I can’t physically express has a chance to live and breathe. 

This medium gives me a chance to really acknowledge what that inner self is like.  And from that groundwork, I can take on topics of faith and certainty to tell the world that neither you nor I can truly know what happens after this life but we can do a lot to improve what we have here, right now.