Tell us briefly about your background & how you got started in your medium.

I’ve been a barista here at Cornerstone Coffeehouse since 2018, but now live in Columbia, PA, where I am attending Millersville University for Art Education. I have lived and worked in Central PA, Pittsburgh, PA, Seoul, South Korea, and Sydney, Australia. My nana taught me how to paint watercolors when I was really young. While I have been painting and drawing my whole life, I ultimately ended up focusing on watercolor and ink towards the end of high school because those mediums are most friendly to sketchbooks.

What do you like most about your medium?

With each show, I have the opportunity to go bigger and better each time. I started to like watercolor the most because it is so portable. You can take it in a backpack to the top of a mountain, or bikeriding around the coast, and all you need is a little water and a vision. As I go on, however, so many other artists tell me how much they hate watercolor. It’s too permanent, they can’t control it! But that’s exactly what I like about it. You make a mark and therefore make a decision, as with life. “What is, is.” That philosophy has not only informed my artmaking process but also become the guiding line of my life.

Who or what have been your artistic inspirations?

I love to go to a museum, so I plan at least one for every trip I go on. Even if they are not painters or illustrators like myself, I get inspired everyday by artists and creatives on Instagram, youtube, and TV, and even my friends in real life.
It’s hard to pick just a few well-known examples, but as for major influences in my life I aspire to emulate the dreamy colors and movement of James Jean’s illustrations, the atmosphere of Hayao Miyazaki films, and the playful figures of JJ Knight’s digital illustrations. Last year I saw a major exhibition of my namesake, Georgia O’Keeffe’s watercolor artwork in the MoMA, and that bolstered my convictions about my own medium.

Do you have a favorite piece in your portfolio?

This year for my final project in our drawing class at HACC, we were allowed to choose any medium, any subject, any number of works, as long as they were in a series. That assignment produced the 4 big paintings in this show, including my absolute favorite, “Wisteria Gate.” While the media and subjects were not exactly unfamiliar to me, the scale at which I worked was definitely a challenge, but very rewarding once completed. They all focused on iconic places around Harrisburg, since this summer was the last I spent in Harrisburg for a while. They also include an arch theme, kind of alluding to the passing from one stage into another.

What would be your advice to artists just starting out in your medium?

Drawing how and what you love is so important – both in terms of the medium that you use and also the subject matter. Using a medium that you hate just because it is perceived as more prestigious or valuable (such as using oil or acrylics over watercolors, for example) will only make you resentful. That being said, the act of practicing, even if nobody sees it, is a big part of learning and growing in your artmaking skill. Showing others to get feedback and experimenting with new things are very important, but I would be nowhere today if it weren’t for my decades of sketchbook practice that never saw the light of day.