A long time ago, I had low self-confidence. Luckily, with my loved ones’ encouragement over the years, I have improved, but I still understand how low self-confidence prevents people from acknowledging their strengths and capabilities, limits them from pursuing their goals, and hurts their feelings. Whenever I hear my friends criticizing themselves unreasonably, I explain to them their good qualities because I genuinely believe in them and that it isn’t worth letting low self-esteem obstruct them. Through this painting, I want to show the viewer how self-confidence can give us great power to achieve anything. The eagle on top is made of ice, so supposedly, it’s flightless and weak to the fire around it. However, in its reflection below, it sees itself as a mighty, real eagle, a symbol of strength. Even if real eagles can get burnt too, the ice eagle’s belief in itself gives it the power to make miracles and fearlessly fly through the flames.

After watching the Star Wars movies with me, my little brother pretended to be a Jedi, master of the Force and light sabers. He wielded his ruler and wore his hood, prepared to defeat evil. In the Star Wars world, the Force and light sabers are the most powerful. In our world, I believe that the greatest power is love. From seeing my friends and family, reading stories and learning about historical figures, I’m reminded that no matter what type of love, it can change people and the world. Even gestures seemingly as small as a heartfelt birthday card can make a friend smile for the whole week. When we treat others with love and compassion, we can help to make the world brighter. In this painting, my brother swings a bright sunflower, which symbolizes love, like a sword to dispel the surrounding greyish, dull fog. His hood hides his face to convey that anyone can have the power and hope to overcome darkness.

Every day, I spot at least one person absorbed in a phone or computer, liking models’ photos on social media or reading news articles. While the internet benefits society by helping people to become more educated, aware and entertained, it can also hurt people’s happiness if the toxic parts of the internet damage their self-esteem or mislead them. My peers complain about biased news reports, or about celebrities who committed suicide due to cyberbullying. I used cool colors for highlights and warm colors for shadows, the opposite of the usual way of coloring light and shadow, and a green and red color scheme to convey the boy’s opposition to the negative influence of the internet that he consumes. His wide, open mouth mirrors the open laptop computer, as if they are shouting at each other or trying to eat each other. This painting tells us to use the internet well for spreading nutritious information like facts and positivity, and to resist and speak out against negative information.

Whenever I get a mosquito bite, it blisters, waters and itches for weeks. Whenever I hear the buzz of a mosquito, I can’t focus. Although I know that they shouldn’t be a big deal, it’s hard to keep myself from feeling paranoid about mosquitoes. Luckily, after facing them every summer for many years, my summers have become more carefree as I no longer constantly watch out for mosquitoes. In this painting, the boy stares at the spider hanging right in front of his face because he fears or is confronting it. No matter how sick he feels, as shown by the disgusted yellow filling his complexion and the spider’s eerie green reflected in his body, he is able to keep facing his fear unhesitatingly with open eyes. I made the boy’s eyes unusually wide to emphasize the importance of overcoming fear to attain joy in the long run. Since facing fears with a positive attitude is similar to enjoying a spooky festival, I named this piece “Halloween.”

My friends and I have experienced the constraints of peer pressure, society’s norms, culture, responsibilities or parents’ high expectations that can threaten to stifle our interests, dreams, curiosity, and relationships. Some may not have the means to break out even if they really want to. However, society usually depicts kids as happily carefree and doesn’t understand kids’ strong desire to break out of what traps them. In my painting, the little girl pressed up against and pulling on a playground’s net fills up a majority of the composition to emphasize that she peers at and longs for something beyond the painting’s frame. Her worried expression suggests her stress and helplessness, but I used soft colors to imply how others may see her as merely a cute, happy child playing with a net.

An upside-down clown emerging out of darkness shows how creativity brings fun and light to the world. A falling clown fading into darkness, on the other hand...

One of my friends always leaps at the chance to show others whenever he gets a good grade. At first, I thought that this was strange, but once I got to know him, I think that he gets genuine pride and happiness from striving for excellence. However, I wonder if there’s something else driving him forward. In this painting, the boy pouts and bends over cheekily to show off his success, exaggerated by his giant medal. He’s proud that he earned it for himself, as shown by his medal “Good Est. Me”, which means “goodness came from me,” similar to top brands using “est.” to show off their long history and high quality. This interpretation indicates that people can find happiness through striving for success. The medal can also be read as “Goodest Me,” weighing down the boy with the burden to keep being his best self. His pout and the childish misspelling of “Best” emphasize his vulnerability. This interpretation reflects those who feel stressed or burdened by trying to be perfect and successful.

Throughout his childhood, this boy has not only learned how to earn A+’s, but also what a scolding pose is like and how to conjure A+’s out of blood.

This painting is for the cover of a story that I’m making about Mimi, a young dolphin who gets lost from her pod. When searching for it, she ventures beyond her habitat to the unfamiliar ocean’s depths and the land’s harbors and zoos. She meets other sea creatures and people with diverse motives from survival to generosity. Who truly wants to help her and who’s just using her? Are the fisherman and the sharks predators or allies? Even if Mimi, whom I drew as pure and innocent, gets deeply hurt by betrayal and hardships, can she avoid becoming cynical, stay true to herself and persevere to find her family and make true friends? Will the beauty of her heart touch those around her and turn even the most vicious enemies into friends? Sometimes, people whom we hated turned out to be kind. We may form misconceptions and prejudices, but people can change over time. We should treat everyone sincerely and treasure our friends, as it’s the only way we’ll give people a chance to enter our hearts.

On the first day of the highly selective California State Summer School of the Arts (CSSSA), the painting teacher set up a huge table of flowers, bowls and other random objects and assigned us to paint a still life for our first project. On top of simply transferring what I saw onto the canvas, I wanted to let my imagination work too. I suddenly recalled the holograms of robots and code that Iron Man invented for his fantastical suits, and the augmented reality on my friends’ Pokemon Go cameras. What if, in the near future, virtual reality becomes so advanced that the graphics are exactly like the real objects? What will users’ new view of the world look like then? My still life maintains the objects’ original appearance, but the transparent intersections make the viewer wonder about the future of virtual reality, how it will affect people’s daily lives, and which objects are real and which are illusions.