Pump It Up - Charcoal Drawing
All to Myself - Ballpoint and Gel Pen
Flamingo Crane - Pen and Ink
1. Pump It Up. 2022. Charcoal. This piece allowed me to combine my passions for photography, drawing, and my love for this game all in one. Pump It Up is Korea's version of the popular Dance Dance Revolution arcade game, and for years, I've practiced it, played it with friends, and found a simple and silly outlet for connection and fun.
2. All to Myself. 2022. Ballpoint and Gel pens. What if you could live in a world with every activity you love, and every materialistic desire you have, available in a perfectly condensed city made just for you? How long would you be happy? While this is an illustration of my "perfect world", it is... lifeless. Even with everything I love, I couldn't possibly be happy without people to share it with.
3. Flamingo Crane. 2023. A conceptual piece for combining a machine and an animal. Everything about it is a bit absurd. I also filmed the entire process of this work, posted on TikTok, and the video went viral, amassing over 980,000 views to date, thus becoming a gateway for me to make profit through social media, while teaching and inspiring an audience of young artists on the platform. See the video and process work below.
"Flamingo Crane" Process and Viral Video
2024, Rollerball pen and white gel pen on sketchbook paper, 11"x17"
"Flamingo Crane" full process explained from my TikTok, on which it went viral and amassed over 980,000 views and 200,000 likes
(username: hartexists).
Illustration and Fine Art
Trypanophobia
Feel Alive
Mother Mother's All the Dying/Inside (CD case design)
The Future of Gaming
Self Portrait (Micron only)
Are We Ever Alone?
2024 Oil Painting
This piece was eye-opening for me as it allowed me to rediscover part of who I am again.
When it came to this work, I felt scared for the first time in a long time. It was my first time oil painting (other than two small observational pieces from the same class), and the subject matter was so vulnerable that I had to work with my easel turned so that it was hidden from the class each workday.
Artist statement for this piece:
I have always felt like the most confident version of myself when I'm alone. My body plays a large part in that. Growing up, I was incredibly insecure about how I looked, and over time, through many solo experiences, activities such as climbing and working out, and self-reflection, I transformed into somebody new that I loved. I now feel safe to say I love myself, and that is something that never formed through the validation of others, but through my eyes only. The POV of the piece from where my pillow would be on my bed represents how every morning, for as long as I've known, I've woken up alone, and only I am there to love myself at my most vulnerable.
Process work for: Self Portrait as Medusa
Thumbnails/Ideation
Variations of selected Thumbnail
Final sketch 1
Final Sketch 2 - selected
Listen
Charcoal and Graphite Drawings
Self portrait Detail - Charcoal
Master Study of Michelangelo's Studies for the Libyan Sibyl
Master Study
Hand anatomy/gesture studies
Hand anatomy/gesture studies
Foot anatomy/gesture studies
Drawings From Direct Observation
1. Still Life, Freshman Year Drawing I Class
Dining Commons Direct Observation - Viral
2. Dining Commons, Freshman Year Drawing I Class
The TikTok I made for the process of this work went viral, amassing over 4.3 million views and 837,000 likes
username: hartexists
3. Car Ride to and from the Boundary Waters, Minnesota
4. Campground near Shenandoah National Park, Virginia
