What does “we choose love” mean to you?
“We choose love” means human solidarity and openness to understanding. In the tumultuous time that we are living in now, I think it is more important than ever for us to be open and recognize our personal connections to the racial and political divisiveness that is occurring across the nation. In the media, news channels, politicians, civilians are all divided and people in power are preying on people’s fears to elicit and trigger responses. In a time where free speech is being used as a cover for hate spread by our current administration, now is a time where it is more important than ever to choose love. This means fighting for each other no matter the differences in our skin color, language, culture, or any other aspect of individual identity.
What artists and art styles have inspired you? How did you discover/develop your own style?
Yayoi Kusama and Jean-Michel Basquiat are two artists that always inspire me in every way. Kusama’s unique use of color and shape and her obliteration of canvases and her openness about her mental health struggles motivates me to create. There is something about her work that is obsessive and it makes me want to be that meticulous about my pieces too.
Basquiat’s counter-culture modernism is a fascinating case study of the tumultuous time in which he lived and the short time that he worked. He did what all artists try to do – mirror culture. What is really special and beautiful about Basquiat’s art is the unique way that he targets the issues of racism, poverty, and materialism. I love his ability to use his background as a graffiti artist to combine contemporary culture with all these different aspects of his personal identity and world history.
One of my favorite quotes from him is “I don’t think about art when I’m working. I try to think about life.” I think in terms of discovering and developing your own style, there is a lot of truth to that, I try not to really think about what style I am and more about what feels right to me the more I create. I experiment and study different artistic styles and emulate my favorite artists work until they started melding into something that is uniquely my own. I also try to keep in mind that my style is still evolving and I’m not fully trained. I look forward to continuing my journey as an artist and studying art history and different styles and am excited to see how my art evolves.
Ameya Okamoto
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