Zeniya Soro

I choose to pursue art because it’s the only thing I’ve ever thought of doing. When I was little, I wanted to be an architect, someone who designed all the beautiful buildings I saw when I was growing up; from then on I discovered a passion in drawing as I was always doodling on my papers and gaining inspiration from my surroundings and media I consumed. The media I consumed (since I grew up with the internet) was often cartoons, and ideas I had gotten from the books I’d read at school. This passion to pursue art is mostly fueled by the enjoyment and thrill I get from creating a piece of art that I really put myself into! This feeling is something I’d always want to keep, especially since it’s one of the things in my life I couldn’t imagine living without. I think this feeling extends to my creative process as well, since my art practices aren’t really conventional.

To me, art is sporadic/chaotic, therefore a lot of my processes skip around. I rarely ever start with a sketch and if I do it’s normally in pen, as I felt using pencils was limiting my process. I wanted to get better at accepting mistakes and trials seen in my art process, while using pencils it took me ages to finally start making progress on a piece. I’d experiment with mediums, going from collage work and oil pastel to acrylic or charcoal. Within my portfolio, I have pieces that I would hope display how versatile my personal style is. I prefer to overwhelm viewers, but I also want people to assign meanings to my work rather than have meanings be clear. That openness in my artwork allows me to connect with many people instead of limiting my audience. Within the meanings I assign to my work I hope people can find something within it to relate to as much as I do. I usually focus on identity as well as perception. I believe those two concepts are interesting and allow me to further my own understanding of others as well as myself. Art has been an outlet for me, so my portfolio shows my experiences, my emotions, as well as my views. Since these are the concepts that have shaped me, and the concepts that continue to shape me I utilize them the best I can in my own work.

I tend to want to experiment with textures, so I utilize a lot of fabric and objects with interesting textures in my work, as well as use surfaces, or create surfaces that would make the viewer (as well as myself) want to touch it. I love working with texture as it almost adds another layer of interest to the work, as through the usage of mixed media and experimentation with texture I can work with the themes of identity. With identity I can also explore how culture and media consumption can shape the lives and/or experiences of people living in the 21st century. Especially since internet culture has shaped my own artistic experience, fandom is one of the sole reasons I continue to create as with the rise of social media and mass media consumption I’ve been exposed to so much at an early age I think it was inevitable that its influences would show up in my own artwork. I also believe because of this I’ve been able to connect with older artists as well as their contemporaries.