Biography
Mariana Perez is a Dominican artist born and raised in Lawrence, MA. She is a Studio Art Major at Trinity College in Hartford, CT. She paints and illustrates self-portraits and portraits of Black and Brown folks. She gravitates towards incorporating her personal experiences, cool colors, and elements from the universe in her work.
Artwork: she is the moon
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Artist Statement
Through a series of self-portraits, all in various interactions and moments with the moon, I am portraying my journey to become aligned with my highest self. I developed some weekly and monthly practices that depended directly on the moon phases. I am consistent with these practices in order to provide myself with structure, clarity, and guidance. This has been a very peaceful and creative period for me.
In this project, I work with oil paint on canvas and digital drawings on Procreate. My process with creating oil paintings is slow and traditional compared to the immediate process of modern digital drawings. They both come from pencil and pen sketches in a blank notebook but take final form in completely different ways. I draw inspiration from minimal and surreal design, conceptual approaches, and cool color palettes. My exposure to cartoon and anime media and BIPOC creatives with personal narratives have impacted this project immensely.
A majority of my digital drawings are titled from direct quotes from The Moon Book: Lunar Magic to Change Your Life by Sarah Faith Gottesdiener. I also became interested in learning more about astrology through many astrologers on social media. Some examples are Kirah The Strology, Chani Nichols, and Chelsea aka Zodiac Healer. In general, I connect my knowledge of astrology with my lunar practices. I reflect both this system and practice in this project as well. I hope the viewers feel a sense of comfort, healing, and gratitude while looking at my work. These feelings came up for me while I created these pieces.
