Guppy in Childhood: How Art Became My Translation Tool

Guppy in Childhood

I have always been an artist.  While other kids were still in the scribble stage, I was painting brightly coloured flowers and houses. My childhood was full of marker sets, coloured pencils, loose paper & those terrible plasticky watercolours. Art was my escape from this growing pressure on my brain.

To my parents, I was an emotionally complex, easy-to-set-off puzzle of a daughter. They struggled to understand me as I struggled to understand myself. My reactions always seemed so out of proportion, even when I felt I had little to no control. I could never quite explain the intensity. What they saw as overreacting was often the only way I knew how to release what was building inside. I was trying to cope with a world that often felt too sharp, too loud, too fast.

As the world grew more overwhelming, I sunk further into my art. For hours after 3 pm, you would find me hunched over my desk, just drawing. I drew hundreds, maybe thousands of unique characters. Looking back, I can tell you that each character I drew was inspired by an intense state of emotion, coinciding with the start of puberty. Drawing quickly became a tool for processing & expressing how I was feeling.

In those years, art became both my outlet and my mirror. It was a way to express what I felt, and a way to recognise who I was becoming. As I got older, the drawings melted into painting, collage & design. My art matured as I did. As I left high school and began to heal, I realised that my work was more than just a way to cope; it was a way to connect. Where words failed, colours and shapes spoke. Where I felt isolated, my art gave others a way in. My friends were the ones who made me realise that the emotions I was portraying were not mine to bear alone.  They saw my work and found themselves reflected in it.

This blog is an all-access, behind-the-scenes tour of what drives my creative process. It gives shape to the way I experience and process the world.