About Me
My name is Sky Na, and my pronouns are he/him. I am currently a Studio Art major at CSULB. I primarily enjoy drawing and painting subjects involving people and still lives with traditional media, but also engage in digital art. I am currently very interested in printmaking, anti-imperialist political art, and brutalist architecture. As a queer transgender man, I also am very invested in art that explores identity and celebrates intersectional people, narratives, and experiences.
I grew up watching my mother, who was a Fine Arts major when she was in college, sketch portraits of me and my siblings as well as of other people in our surrounding family and community. I also drew random characters and friends for fun, and in high school eventually attended a summer art program at a local college in which I was able to learn figure drawing and ceramics. I also took one year of AP Studio Art my senior year. After high school, I attended a non-traditional school called Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts for two years, where I took a variety of inter-disciplinary academic courses. After leaving Hampshire, I took classes at community colleges until I received an Associate in Art for Transfer degree in Studio Art and transferred to CSULB. During my childhood, my family moved frequently, but I was born in California and mostly grew up on the East Coast in a small town in Connecticut. Being raised in small, wealthy, and conservative areas meant that I was often told to believe that art should be perceived through elitist perspectives, something to be restricted unless a person had obtained a certain level of conventional talent or skill. However, I personally reject the gate keeping of art from people who are not perceived as "professional artists." I am also firmly against art being exclusively seen and treated as a commodity and the demand for individualist perfection and over-production in art industries. Education Philosophy: Education is crucial for a person's development, and I believe that education belongs to all people. Education should provide people with the means to help themselves and others reach better conditions of living and existence, and art is one such means to do so In a society in which greater proximity to conventional and socio-economic success is dependent on one's educational background, socio-economic class also creates a hierarchy of education accessibility needed to gain said proximity to success. I believe that the same can be said for art and the institutions available to aspiring artists. Both art and education are directly tied to class and power, and unfortunately are, as a result, both commodified, but I would prefer all aspects of life to be lived without the commodification of such experiences. I believe that ideally, art should be taught to be created for the sake of the artist and communities rather than for commercialization, and to inspire other artists and leave lasting impressions for the audience/viewer. My own personal experiences with informal art teaching include being a student aid for an after-school art program at an elementary school and facilitating arts and crafts programs for senior citizens. I was allowed to be less structured in these environments than I would have as a regular teacher, and I was able to experience forming relationships by helping both very young and old people feel empowered through the process of creating something that they could feel happy about. |