Mya Wright
Visual
Installation
Mya Wright (Born in 2006, Pretoria) is an Australian artist, who draws on her experience living internationally to explore a wide range of artistic expressions. Having lived in 5 countries, she recently graduated from Kazakhstan International School, where she studied visual arts under the International Baccalaureate program. At the school, she had her first art exhibition, where she showcased 10 artworks of the theme “Seeing what cannot be seen”.
Her works are often paintings, digital artwork, and mixed media pieces. However, she frequently works in other mediums and aims to continue exploring new ideas and techniques. She is currently based in Australia and is now journeying into the professional art world.
Statement
Mya Wright explores a diverse range of themes, however she most commonly focuses on unseen perspectives, and depicting stories. She utilises small details, with each element or symbol within a piece providing insight into the meaning, the scene, or the subject. She creates art to offer both her audience and herself a glimpse into diverse worlds and perspectives.
Her pieces are created to inspire profound emotions and thoughts, whether peace, guilt, curiosity, or a sense of perspective. Allowing her works to develop through the creative process and be inspired by her environment, her work aims to reveal new branches of thought.
My body of work
For many artists, including myself, art is often an expression of oneself, however what draws me most to it, is that it can allow me to dive into someone else's mind. As I draw a character I envision the story of their world, what they do, and why they do it. As I paint a shape I imagine what it means to the community it represents. As I craft a paper boat I think of the journey it has been on. Art allows me a way to experience another world, much like reading a story or watching a film. Therefore, I share these pieces with my audience, so that they too may delve into such perspectives. My pieces are as much a journey for my audience, as they are for me.
That being said, I am also not one to shy away from appreciating beauty in the everyday. To capture a moment frozen in time, perhaps of a running river surrounded by the lush trees of Kazakhstan, or a hug drawn five times over, each with a new colour palette, is just as satisfying to me as portraying a grand scene.
Abstract pieces, of shapes, symbols, and colours
As I immerse myself in the world of my artwork, I think of the small details, ones that may build the story, offer insight into the scene I portray. However abstractism, in its own way, has a means of being even more thought provoking. I think of the symbolism behind each colour, their texture, and the balance of the composition. Often I find that adding a new element as I work is what leads me to find a new meaning behind the element, rather than knowing the meaning and discovering a way to show it.
This artwork
In this artwork, I aim to channel a profound sense of guilt intertwined with intrigue. This work tells a story, a clothing rack in a store, in which people have been so quick to rush for a piece of clothing, to rip it off its hanger, that they disregard the tags, each one representing 200,000 children. The 500 tags therefore represent the 100,000,000 children estimated to be working in child labour for the fashion industry. As the audience interacts with this piece, walking over the tags, only to later read what they each represent, a sense of guilt rises.
This piece was inspired by stories of “help me” messages written on the tags of fast fashion clothing. I was troubled by the seemingly apathetic videos online of people complaining that they couldn’t do anything, so why should they be asked. This idea enraged me, that people could so easily disregard the cruelty of others, however it also shined a light on my own hypocrisy. To know that even as I display this piece, and share this message, I continue to purchase such brands, regardless of how indirectly it may be. While you and I may feel guilt knowing how we play into such a system, it pales in comparison to the struggle of the people, the children, actually affected.
