paige
manley
ABOUT ME
My name is Paige Manley, and I live in North Carolina. In the fall, I will be attending the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and majoring in 3D Digital Design to hopefully continue on into a career in visual effects for film. Art is something I enjoy very much and am constantly doing, whether it be in an art class at school or at home for fun. My favorite medium are pen and ink and digital art. I particularly enjoy digital art because of how convenient it is to set up and clean up compared to other mediums (like paint). My favorite color is red, and my favorite animal is dogs. I have two dogs named Holly and Luna who I love very much.
ARTIST'S STATEMENT
As an artist, I find myself nearly always drawing inspiration for my pieces from the natural world. Nature was the first form of art that existed, and it will continue to exist far after us humans are here to appreciate it. As the world grows and changes, nature changes right alongside it in the most beautiful way I can imagine. When I create my art, my goal is to capture this beauty and present it in a way that is reminiscent of nature as it is in life yet still exemplifies my own unique style. I begin with simple thumbnail sketches to establish a solid composition and general shapes and then progress to a larger, more detailed sketch. While many of my pieces tend to be on the more technical side and focus on my ability to create realistic renderings of what I see, I have recently begun to combine nature and my own experiences in life to produce works with a greater significance to myself. In my personal artworks, I let my emotions and view of the world around me influence what I create. When people look at my art, I want them to be drawn in by the story I am telling through the realistic elements that I incorporate. Many of my works include detailed aspects of nature, such as bones and plants, and I attempt to combine these with my storytelling abilities to create more interest. I particularly enjoy focusing on the details of nature because even the most minute lines and shapes are imperative in the outcome of the overall piece. Through National Art Honors Society, I have participated in numerous art shows where my art is hung in local banks for about a month at a time. The most significant show that I have been a part of was Gifts of Gold, which is a county-wide arts competition where each art teacher chooses one artwork to represent their school. While I did not win the competition, having my art chosen out of the hundreds of others at my school felt like just as much of an accomplishment. Due to the prevalence of nature in my art, my works tend to be more realistic as opposed to abstract. To me, art is not something that has to be completely different from what everyone else does to be interesting. Each individual person has their own way of transforming their feelings into art, and mine takes a more literal form.
PHILOSOPHY OF ART
The philosophy of art which most closely aligns with my artistic ideas is Emotionalism. Art is nothing without emotion; it is what allows an artist to draw their audience into a piece. Sometimes, the emotion is simple, such as happiness or sadness, but many times, it is much more abstract and left up to the interpretation of each viewer. Emotion is the most important part of creating an artwork. Without it, art is boring. Symbolism is not quite as important to my art as emotion, but many times I utilize certain colors to encourage specific feelings upon the audience. By having both symbolism and emotion, a piece then develops meaning. For me, the process of my art goes both ways. In some cases, I go into a project with a meaning in mind and develop ideas supporting it, while other times, I know what I want to draw, and by developing the piece through sketches, it begins to go deeper. If an artist creates a piece without putting a part of themselves into it, then the piece, in my opinion, is not successful. The best artworks are ones that are close to the artist; they include something significant to themselves in the piece. An artist can paint things that have no relevance to themselves all they want, but at the end of the day, their best pieces will be the ones where they invested some part of themselves into it. Personally, I enjoy drawing nature--it is in nearly every artwork that I make. That is what I am passionate about as an artist. By incorporating these aspects into my work, I as the artist find myself feeling more connected with my art. If you are passionate about something, that in itself is an emotion. An artwork created by an artist who is indifferent to it will reflect that attitude. The audience knows when an artist feels strongly about their piece, which is what leads to a piece of artwork being labelled successful.
In my personal artworks, I let my emotions and view of the world around me influence what I create. I want to be seen as an artist who incorporates realistic elements into their pieces while still telling a story that draws their audience in. Many of my works include detailed aspects of nature, such as bones and plants, and I attempt to combine these with my storytelling abilities to create more interest. I particularly enjoy focusing on the details of nature, because even the most minute lines and shapes are imperative in the outcome of the overall piece. Some of the smallest, least noticeable details are the most important to the story. In a pen and ink drawing I did of a child watching a T-rex made of bones walking down the street, the little girl is holding a stuffed dinosaur with scuff marks on it in her hand. This subtle detail of the stuffed animal provides the audience with knowledge about the girl’s life: she likes dinosaurs, and the toy is well loved. Her hair is styled in pigtails, and there is a band-aid on her elbow, showing she is young and clumsy. These such details combined with the emotions I have towards the subject, in my opinion, are the things that breathe life into my pieces, and I want others to see that when they view at my art.
As said by Oscar Wilde, “Art enables us to find ourselves and to lose ourselves at the same time.” Art helps you discover who you are--not only as an artist, but as a person as well. It allows you to express yourself in ways that words do not. Art gives you the ability to create literally anything you can think of; the only limit is your imagination. The concept of art is so expansive that you can lose yourself in it.