96 x 144 inches
Circle City Industrial Complex of Indianapolis
2023
Everything is New is all about discovering the glimpses of light, wonder, and life around us and translating them into immersive, colorful scenes. These scenes are meant to draw the viewer in and remind them to slow down and remember the sheer wonder of what it's like to experience our world and relationships for the very first time. Like many others, I have dealt with child loss. After a third devastating loss in 2020, I remember staring out at my neighbor’s tree like a lost soul. In time, the people around me and the environment I existed in, helped draw me back into a state of healing and hope. I mention my losses, not as a sob story, but as a redemptive reminder to strive to live and to find the wonder again, because there is so much of it all around us. Experiencing these losses taught me to cherish the people and the places we exist in.
My goal with this series is to create large scale scenes of wonder, joy, and light across the city of Indianapolis. The environment we exist in, has the incredible ability to promote a sense of pride, growth, healing, and joy. Murals enable me to reach a diverse audience from all ages and walks of life in a way that I simply cannot accomplish with my smaller works. I want to bring my scenes to the public in a way that enriches the community, without the necessity of a gallery or financial obligation to the viewer. I want to paint scenes that people have the opportunity to interact with in their daily routines of moving about their communities.
Children are the main characters, because they are open, full of life, light, and hope. I’ll be painting children of various racial and ethnic backgrounds, so that people of all colors feel represented. The scenes are intermixed with both native and non-native wildlife and plants, because in the mind of a child - of course black jaguar cubs MIGHT be lurking just around the corner of the garden! Auras of color are used around each figure as a means of demonstrating the color of an individual’s energy. Where these intersect, the colors change. This change is meant to draw awareness to how relationships affect and change you. Rays of light extend from the figures as a reminder that our children are conduits of light, brimming over with radiant light and life. I worked closely with my son and his imagination on this first piece and will continue to do so with future installments on this series!
This image is of the first two children featured in my piece on opening night! Such a beautiful friendship between these two! <3 Photo credit: Katie Johnson.