One of the best parts of KO’s culture is its multitude of artists and creative thinkers, and junior Raine Wang is an amazing example of this.
Raine has been creatively expressing themself their whole life, creating little pieces of art. “It only started becoming very serious for me and a big hobby of mine when I was about 10 years old,” they said.
When creating their works, Raine often takes inspiration from animated TV shows. “I just really liked watching animated shows when I was younger,” Raine said. “The art style of that was just so beautiful to me.”
Of these animated shows, Raine pointed out a few that they truly loved. “If you’ve ever watched ‘Arcane,’ it has an amazing art style – I love the painterly aspect of it,” Raine said. “Shows like ‘Adventure Time’ and ‘Bee and Puppycat’ have very cute styles that I always really wanted to have when I was younger.”
Art is an important part of any community, and Raine shared their thoughts on how they view its role. “I think that art is very telling of who we are as people,” Raine said. “Historically, art has been used in many ways to showcase culture and politics and the language of the time. It’s been used to challenge those structures as well. There’s a lot of political art, and there’s also a lot of art that’s just centered around culture. So there’s this Chinese artist. I forget his name, but he basically makes rockets. That’s an example of art, perpetuating and showcasing culture and keeping it alive. So I think that art is very important to who we are as humans and expressing ourselves and also challenging ourselves to think differently.”
Raine, like many of us, was forced indoors during the COVID-19 pandemic, and that’s when they made their favorite piece of art. “I picked up oil painting,” Raine said. “I made one painting of my dog from a picture that I took of her. She was holding a mask in her mouth and I thought it was so cute.”
Raine also has a very distinct style in their works. “What I try to go for is semi-realistic,” Raine said. “I’m trying to achieve as much anatomical correctness as possible, but I’m also playing around with different colors a lot, especially in my more recent artwork.”
Even though Raine wants to pursue art in the future, they are not certain in what way. “The future for me isn’t really set right now,” Raine said. “But I know that I do want to keep doing art. Art is a big passion of mine and I love doing it, so I would love it if I could pursue a minor in art in college.”
Raine is an amazing artist and a wonderful part of the KO community, and we look forward to seeing their amazing pieces in the future.
