While I've always been an imaginative child, I became particularly immersed in the various worlds I would create in my head and from the books I read during Covid 19 quarantine. This piece reflects the way that I would submerge myself into my own worlds as opposed to the real one, represented by the submerged cityscape. Whales are often associated with solitude and unbridled curiosity, both things that were a big part of my experiences during quarantine. Using various colours to paint my face, I wished to convey the lack of normalcy I experienced during those times: because 2020 had been such a abnormal time it seemed fitting that instead of realistically painting my face, I would take stylistic liberties like messy brushstrokes and colours like pink and purple.

  This piece was inspired by a core memory of mine. When I was younger, I visited an aquarium with my family, and we came across a large cylindrical tank in which hundreds of fish were swimming in the same direction. However, there was one fish that was swimming in the opposite direction from the others. My mother told me to follow the norm and never “become that fish”. However, I now believe that in order to succeed, especially in areas that require creativity like art, I need to think differently from everyone else. At first glance, most people would think that the fish swimming in the direction opposite from everyone else was going backward, but in reality, that fish may have been swimming forwards.