Artist Statement

Childhood relationships are essential in a developing child’s life because they shape how an adolescent will interact as a teenager and relate with others as an adult. I wondered if twins impact each other’s early development, personality, and character. I asked if twins influence each other’s early development, nature, and character. Each portrait in my portfolio is drawn and rendered on my iPad using the program Procreate.

In Sea Sisters, I expand upon the magical and bubbly imaginations of a young pair of fraternal twins I met at the beach. The girls were playing games with their floaties and pretending they had powers, so I decided to further their whimsical imagination in my drawing by giving them mermaid tails. 

In Worlds of Imagination, I focus on twins' influence on each other’s creative capacities while using the right side of their brains. Through parallelism, I am showing the twins creating art while their imaginations are creating a world of limitless adventure and innocence surrounding them. I included several pockets of complementary colors throughout the piece to provide a color scheme that brings out the vibrancy and life in the boys’ imaginations. 

Twins have a constant companion by their side, but sometimes the circumstances in life aren’t ideal. Experiencing death is one of the hardest things to comprehend and cope with as a child, especially when a child has lost someone as close as a twin sister. I based Angel Twin on a true story about a mother that had one miscarriage in a twin pregnancy. Despite the physical loss and separation between the twins, I focus on establishing a comforting bond through sisterly hugs.

Piecing Life Back Together has a similar meaning; however, it focuses on a set of twins’ experiences with separation due to the worldwide pandemic. Life is slowly pieced back together through the comfort of family members and virtual connections. The small, kind words contrasting with the powerful, daunting, negative words create a metaphor for how people view the pandemic today. It is easy to see the negative aspects of the pandemic, but if searched for, there are little pockets of positive, peaceful moments hidden in everyday life. 

In The Thesaurus, I chose to illustrate how a set of twins’ misunderstanding of a book called “Thesaurus” became defined as a type of dinosaur. The boys’ imaginations run wild, creating a Jurassic world of dinosaurs interacting with them as they read. 

In Connect 4, I illustrate the competitive nature of fraternal twins through a forced perspective of a childhood game. The board is considerably more significant than the kids showing that, in the twin’s minds, winning is a disproportionately bigger deal to them than when it is viewed from an adult’s perspective. 

Overall, this portfolio depicts the bonds and shared imaginations and experiences of twins. It attempts to capture how growing up with (or without) the constant companionship of a sibling in early childhood influences how twins learn, grow, and discover all aspects of life.