ARTIST STATEMENT

To this day, my strongest link to my childhood is my enduring love of fairytales and folklore. However, it was not until college that this connection to my younger self so heavily influenced my work and aspirations. Everything fell into place during my junior year at the University of Connecticut, when I first enrolled in a Narrative Workshop class. It was the perfect opportunity to showcase my creative talents, to combine my passion for digital illustration and my affinity for folktales, particularly those of Gaelic origin. 

The basis for this project is a handful of written excerpts from an earlier project of mine, which incorporated elements of Irish, Scottish, and Norwegian folklore. After weeks of research on traditional Gaelic illustration styles and folklore creatures, I digitally illustrated a series of ten tarot cards to supplement ten short excerpts I had written and submitted them as the final deliverable for the Narrative Workshop class. 

However, for my Senior Project, I exchanged my own writing for a well-known poem in the public domain, “The Stolen Child” by prolific Irish writer, W. B. Yeats. I traded my flat tarot card designs for digital illustrations with integrated movement akin to an animated comic book, complete with parallax and cross-screen pans. I explored a variety of different styles and, ultimately, decided to play to the whimsical, fantastical elements within both Yeats’s work and my own. In the end, I developed an illustration style that uses both black and white linework and vibrant pops of color in a way that makes it seem almost like stained glass.

This project has become the culmination of my interests. I have successfully used my digital media and illustration experience to form a cohesive project that juxtaposes ancient histories, traditions, and stories, with modern technology and exemplifies my interests.

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