In the fourth of our “meet the artists” series, we introduce two more of our team members: Narionna, who goes by Nari, and Lily. Both of these ferociously talented young ladies come to us from SOTA where Lily is a senior and Nari a junior. We first met Nari when she applied last year- yet unfortunately she fell just short of the age requirement to participate. All of us were happy when she reapplied this year and was able to join us! Each of these ladies brings an amazing wealth of creativity and energy to this program. Seeing some similarities between their styles, we paired them up during our first collaborative assignment- and their resulting sketch was so impressive that it became the subject of one of the first panel projects made by our crew. It will be joined by Fran and McKenzie’s collaborative panel for installation at one of the R-Centers once the program ends.
Narionna
Hi I’m Narionna Nunez, I’m a 16 year old artist born and raised in Rochester, New York. I’m in the 11th grade at School Of The Arts. I’ve been drawing since I was 1 ½, I know that sounds crazy but there’s a story about when my aunt gave me a pen and scrap paper when we were in church and i started drawing imperfect circles. She said I would look at people in the church and draw circles like I was trying to draw heads. In preschool art was my passion and that’s all I wanted to do when I went to school and continued on. I love doing realism and surrealism, and colored pencil is a huge strength for me but unfortunately painting is a weakness, but thats why I joined Roc Paint Division – so I can get better at painting. My high school art class is very awkward and quiet at school. Outside of the program I dance, write poetry and make music of my own. Also I attend the Boys and Girls Club which is helpful and a huge support.
Me being African-American, Black Lives Matter is very huge and important to me. We still are separated from society, discriminated against and often times stereotyped so I support the BLM movement to raise awareness for us of African descent. In Roc Paint Division, I hope that we can have a good message that children can understand, nothing too deep, but a good message. And I want kids to understand no matter what race, what color, if you have braces, freckles, a disability, etc. we are all the same and we all should love each other no matter what. Them seeing that can hopefully help them to grow up knowing that, and minimizing [their perceptions of] inequality and separation from what is perceived as “normal”.
Lily
My full name is Lily Ni, I go to School of the Arts and I am currently in my senior year of high school as a Visual Arts major. I enjoy playing video games or draw things that I enjoy whenever I am free and have time for myself. I have been interested in art for the majority of my life. I used to love drawing cartoons and still do today. Although, I have been able to learn and adapt to other styles such as realism and incorporating it with my art style as I continued with high school. I enjoyed using both digital and traditional media and learned a lot how both of these medias has improved my art in a short amount of time.
I was introduced to this program during the early year of my senior year of high school, where my art teacher offered to our class that if we are interested to apply to a job where it was focused on painting. The overall mentality when applying for this program was that I wanted to improve my painting skills in a larger scale and getting the opportunity to have my first job relate to something I personally enjoy. So far, about a month or so into the program, it has been an interesting experience. I like the atmosphere of how we gradually became more comfortable with one another and that we are able to help with each other as we get to know more about one another. I have learned that despite that each one of us has a different background, we are able to come into this program with the same reason or share the same interest in arts.
One of my favorite memories being part of the program so far was the surprise birthday celebration on my birthday! It was on a Thursday and I had already received many birthday wishes at school, and I came into work somewhat tired. I did not expect any surprises or anyone to sing me the birthday song; I guess it’s because I felt as if the day was already over because I focus my day around school. I also received a birthday card drawn by my friend Francheska, with everyone’s signature in it as well. It was really touching and something I didn’t expect at all. Despite only being in the program for about a month, I feel like that I was able to be part of another huge team or family. Also another favorite memory is when Brittany left Disney music playing and we all sang together. We had a blast and I think we were all very tired that day.
Their collaboration
How did you feel when you came in and see that your sketch had been chosen to go on one of our panels?
Lily: I was genuinely surprised and felt very happy at the same time. I didn’t expect that our sketches would be used for the panels because I thought that our collaborative sketch would be a temporary thing.
Nari: I was excited because I wanted to finish it so badly because it was turning out so well. I didn’t expect it to be, honestly, but to know we are doing this is great and a very good feeling.
How has the process of taking it from the sketch to the panel gone for you so far? What are some of the challenges or learning moments?
Lily: The process wasn’t as difficult because of past experience learning it from school. Being able to transfer the drawing and changing the proportion wasn’t too difficult but trying to look up references that would satisfy how our sketch would look like was slightly difficult. I was able to meet Nari and learn more about her when we did our collaborative sketch.
Nari: It is awesome because it’s a different canvas and something new, and trying things new are always great. There aren’t many challenges except having to do more than one coat of paint and hoping it isn’t dried out which can be a pain.
How has the creative collaborative process between the two of you gone so far? Has the initial sketch and/or concept evolved as you both have been working on it?
Lily: Well we started as a whole group to choose our theme this year to be “representation” and stemmed from that idea. We mentioned a lot about different types of cultures and we decided that we can combine both of our cultures together into one drawing. Such as drawing national animals or using specific type of colors on clothing, etc. So for our piece, we combined some parts of Asian culture with African culture. I think we are able to do well is because we are able to communicate and ask each other questions if we have a problem or out of curiosity. So far, the collaborative process with Nari has been going a lot smoother than I thought, and was very successful in my opinion. We were able to learn a lot from one another which made the collaborative process more enjoyable. Such as that I was able to learn what art style she had and she was able to take advices from me that allowed her to improve with her art skills. We taught each other about our cultures as well when we wanted our collaborative piece to involve with combining our cultures together. It was slightly awkward in the beginning because we didn’t know each other very well but after some time and having to know one another, the art process came naturally. I think we got to learn more from each other despite how different we are. We also communicate with each other often, such as asking questions about the piece and making sure if the other person is okay with an idea the other person came up with.
Nari: [Since I have been] working with portraits for a while, it was kind of easy using it for this panel. Working with the elements of knowing proportion was easy for this. Yes the sketch and concept has evolved a bit, mostly in the sketch but we kept our concept the same. It was a total success for me and my partner, we nailed it together. It was great collabing because i’m usually anti-social and learning you can do something so great with someone else who is completely different from you is amazing. I don’t really believe anything was hard because we agreed a lot. Everything seem to come naturally.
What do you imagine or hope that kids will think when they see this piece at the R-Center?
Lily: I hope that the kids will be able to see this piece and get inspired from it to create something of their own. Or be able to recognize something from their cultural background and point out something from the painting and relate to it or just point to something they like to see. Any form of acknowledgment of the painting or artwork, or even ideas is what I find the most satisfying being an artist.
Nari: I hope they can think of the girl as one of them or “cool” as kids would say.
If you were to give this piece a title, what would it be?
Lily: Hmm…. “Balance”? Just because of the koi fishes in the center of the painting that represents the ying and yang.
Nari: Cultural diffusion.
And thats a wrap! We still have 4 more artists to introduce, but first, next week: The whole team reflects on their second on-sight mural, at the Adams St R-Center!
Roc Paint Division 