This artwork is a watercolor painting of my mother's nook. Through out the years my mother got into multiple hobbies such as crochet, knitting, and origami. Each creation is then placed in a part of the nook, thus creating her crafting corner. When I asked my mom how she would describe her corner, she replied with, "stress-free." In order to portray a feeling of calm and stress-free I painting the corner with bright, warm walls.

This piece represents one's helplessness in moving forward. Weighted strands, made of resource materials, beeswax, thread, and paint, pull down the stretched figure. It is frozen in its suffering. Unable to get back up.

This photo was part of a project where we had to take inspiration from a professional photographer and make it our own. I was inspired by George Hurrell, a photographer known for his glamorous Hollywood portraits. I used a Diana Glass Lens to create the film-like glow, lighting my model in way that created a sense of mystery and importance. This project helped me be more comfortable with studio lighting and working with a model. I'm proud of how well the photos came out despite being somewhat rushed for time and my second model not being able to make it.

This piece highlights the coffee in the center, using warm-toned browns and reds to paint the drink, while cool colors occupy the space around it, framing the piece. Where the milk hits the coffee, oranges and reds appear; highlights in the background are lighter blue than the rest, but never dull. The use of complementary, vivid colors, with crossovers like orange spots in the background and hints of blue in the milk, bring visual balance to the image. The shapes involved also bring the onlooker’s focus to the center. The background is full of straight lines and blocky colors, but the milk being poured into the coffee is swirling with organic shapes and full of movement.

Photography is one of the many ways I enjoy expressing my artistic talent. I feel like my artwork is a reflection of my personal state of mind, burrowing my style into a personal moment of my life. For each photo I take I try to brainstorm a general idea of what I want the finished product to look like, and run with it as I go. For this specific photo, I wanted to achieve a skateboard magazine aesthetic by using a fisheye lens and adding grain/color grading to invoke a vintage camcorder vibe. When shooting the photos, my friend (the subject in the photo) and I came up with the idea for him to ollie over the couch. After we attempted a few trials, we decided to add a clone of him watching the jump from sitting on the couch to add a little bit of spice to the image. All in all, I love to create as I work because it makes the process feel more authentic. I want to truly understand the subject’s feelings and ideas so I can improve and reach my highest potential.

This piece was first based on a collage I made with magazine cutouts. Surrealist paintings inspired me to make a similar work, and I mainly chose figures and buildings. I appreciated drawing architecture and wanted to combine it with my interest in displaying human expression and motion. This piece was done completely in acrylic paint on a 25-inch by 38-inch piece of stretched canvas that I gessoed myself. I wanted to play with unreal color to enhance the strained emotion shown in the piece, along with strange additions to show the complexity and confusion in life, such as the deer in the bottom right corner. The running figures represent how life is a constant moving battle, the cities demonstrating the need to constantly achieve a better life, a dream life, and the face in the top right shows the expression of both pain and laughter, leaving the viewer to wonder which emotion resonates better with the painting and with their lives. The abstract blocks show the parts of life we have not discovered yet, how they are yet to be depicted, and until then, just figures in our imagination. This piece evokes the confusion one feels in the direction their life is going, yet the constant need to keep pushing through and creating progress to make themselves feel stable.

My love and passion for the sport of water polo through the splashing of the water and the quick strike of the ball inspired me to photograph this picture.

I was around two years old when my parents divorced. My mother raised my brother and I, with assistance from both sides of the family. As I grew older, I had a growing sense of disconnection from my family. My father is Mexican and Creole, while my mother is white. As a result of either strange questions about "what I was?" from classmates or encounters with relatives I felt that I wasn't quite white, creole, or Mexican enough to be a part of any group. My heritage became less of a cohesive identity that encompassed both sides of my family and more of a patchwork of people and places that was neither. To explore how I periodically still feel like a collection of thoughts that have been thrown together by accident and life experience, I created these two pieces. I made an effort to convey an awkwardness in my face at how uncomfortable my identity became. These ideas were also intended to be reflected in the piece's construction. After the portrait was finished, I cut the canvas straight across and stitched it back together using embroidery floss. In comparison, my mother's portrait is far more cohesive and certain. Although she is knit together in her own way, the blue sketch lines visible from beneath her skin, the painting is on a sturdy wood board. I wanted to convey that she has found an equilibrium in her identity where she is happy. An equilibrium that I also aim to achieve someday.

For this piece I was inspired by traditional still life artworks that feature fruits, wine, pottery, and other objects from the 17th century. To represent modern society, I replaced some of these traditional objects with packaged processed foods, prescription medication, and an electronic device charging cord. The painting, instead of being on canvas, was painted onto a section of an Amazon delivery box to represent modern preoccupation with consumerism and convenience. This piece is satirical in its subject matter as it is a comment on flaws in our society that are detrimental to our health and our planet’s health.

"Missing Piece", displays the architectural designs of the two most reoccurring locations in my childhood that was of significance to me. As one of the locations is in Korea, my grandmother’s house, and the other is a playground that represents my youth in America, it reveals the cultural sides of my story. The “missing [puzzle] piece” between the two architectural designs is the missing memories of those locations in my childhood. “Missing Piece” represents the ability to lose recollection of memories that one were most fond of. While reminiscing my childhood, I realized that I will always have a “missing piece” that I am unable to retain to connect back with the child version of myself but will always be searching for.

It took me a month to complete my work in the afternoon after I returned home from my homework. Peking Opera is China's intangible traditional culture. People of the older generation still like to listen to operas. We must take responsibility and not let the culture decline. Huadan is a traditional Chinese opera role. She is an image of a young or middle-aged woman with an optimistic and energetic personality, strong self-confidence, and a love of freedom. Hua Dan's ending and character performance often have a bit of comedy. I like Hua Dan’s makeup and styling accessories very much. I have always wanted to take a set of photos like this, but I haven’t found a suitable opportunity. Through this competition in the Bay Area, I can draw the look I have long liked, and I can also paint a broad and profound picture of China. Bringing our culture to the world is something I am more proud of.

This drawing, titled "Memories of Childhood," is a heartfelt tribute to my beloved dog who passed away last year. Through this piece, I aim to capture the profound connection we shared during my formative years. It's a tribute not just to my loyal companion, but to the nostalgia, innocence, and warmth of childhood. In this artwork, I've tried to preserve the essence of those precious moments and the indelible mark left by my faithful canine friend.

This painting is about the the night and the way shadows and light create a very different world both visually and emotionally. I realized that not just me, but so many artists make their art at night and I wanted to capture that feeling. At night especially really late at night, things are more quiet and your mind is in that in between state of awake and dream state. I am also curious about how light from a single source at night looks. How shadows on a face are much more dramatic. I wanted to capture the quiet, contemplative and emotional feelings from the dark loneliness of night.

After a transformative summer internship, my passion for Biology and research ignited like never before. Drawn to the captivating realm of tooth eruption, I decided to extend my work at the research lab, dedicating myself to unraveling the intricacies of this biological process. In the lab, as I delved into the microscopic world of mouse dentin, an unexpected spark of inspiration emerged. The microscopic images of mouse dentin resonated with me, reminiscent of the mesmerizing patterns found in water marbling art from my cultural heritage. This revelation led to a fascinating interdisciplinary journey, where I sought to bridge the worlds of science and art. Combining my newfound love for Biology with the rich tradition of water marbling, I embarked on a unique endeavor to recreate the microscopic images in a visually striking and culturally meaningful way. To achieve this artistically, I have not only practiced traditional Ebru, dots, patterns and flowers, I've had to explore and create new techniques. Now, as I submit my artwork, a 100x microscope image of murine dentin stained with pentachrome, I am not only advancing my scientific research but also embracing the opportunity to celebrate my culture through artistic expression. The marriage of science and art has not only enhanced my understanding of tooth eruption but has also deepened my connection to my roots. This journey has fueled my curiosity, pushing me to learn more about water marbling art and fostering a profound appreciation for the intersection of science, art and culture.

Why do we fear the unknown? “Lurking Risk”, a resin based project, dives into the innate fear of the unknown and the resulting fear of potential risks. When placed into unpredictable situations, the inability to foresee outcomes is often clouded, leading to fear of taking huge risks. The otherworldly creature submerged suggests how we struggle to process uncertainty leading us to spin wild scenarios about what could happen. What is the creature going to do? At first glance, we don’t understand the creature’s intentions which I used to push ideas of uncertainty. Sculpting the fish-like creature with clay, I combined aspects of different sea creatures, taking inspiration from angler fish to sea dragons. I purposefully wanted to leave it up to the viewer to interpret what it is. By allowing the viewer to interpret the creature it creates another layer of uncertainty leading to our imaginations to fill in the gaps of what this sea creature is. In my process for photos, I played with different lighting angles. I found when using a warmer light source, the resin would highlight with a strong red color. I chose to use this red highlight as a connotation for danger as red is often associated with danger. It really pushed ideas of fear and risk. Additionally with the deep color of the resin, I found that the creature inside would slightly disappear when farther from the light source. I found it helped with the mysteriousness, highlighting the lurking natures of the creature’s intentions.

My artwork, "Life in Motion," illustrates scene from my own life: an exciting day out with friends. I wanted to convey to the audience that our lives are constantly in motion. Even though many memories seem fleeting and far away, we have to remember that we are real and our experiences are full of action. Using vivid colors and oil paint, I blended the sky and the people within the artwork, giving the illusion of movement. I used acrylic as a base layer.

"Let The Light In" is a 12 inch tall functional candelabra made with ceramic clay, acrylic paint, and glass beads. While creating this piece, I was struggling with viewing my life in positive ways. I wanted to translate this feeling into the medium I love most; ceramics. The vibrant sun in the center of this candelabra turns the dark cloudy sky on the base into a beautiful blue clear sky moving towards the top. The clear sky and sunlight spreads through every twist and curve of the structure, and through each and every bead. I created this piece to inspire myself to allow “light” or positivity into my everyday life, and my candelabra “Let The Light In” is a flawless representation of my new found mentality.

Eyes help us see color, shapes, and the world around us. Through vivid colors, a combination of straight and curved lines, and various patterns, this piece showcases the vibrancy of vision and the fluidity of sight. Three types of eyes appear: one is a pair of outsider's eyes, one is a logical eye, and one is the eye of the heart—a metaphor for how emotions affect how we view the world. A standard, logical lens views an object as is, while an outsider’s lens may view it from multidimensional angles. A heartfelt lens views with emotion, which adds the truth of feeling to what we see before us.

As a child, sharks were always creatures that fascinated me. When I first heard the name "Lemon Shark", I believed there was a hidden meaning behind the name, but it was just to show that it had a slight yellow color and it completely disappointed me. This project was about creating a real Lemon Shark out of my passion for correcting the truly tragic story of the Lemon Shark. After all my hard work, I created an incredibly lemon-like shark on a sushi plate, complete with wasabi and soy sauce.

This artwork is of a girl with fluid blue hair and lively blue eyes. In this artwork, i intentionally used complementary colors when painting the skin and the hair.