Artfields JR. Past Winners

My inspirations for the physical style of this piece were the artworks of 20th century illustrators like J.C. Leyendecker and Normal Rockwell. Whereas they used their artworks to mostly glorify American culture, I'm using a similar illustrative style to comment on the less idealistic or positive aspects of American society during the 20th century. This artwork is a criticism of the traditional family dynamic during the defined time period and the issues that plagued them. My painting is meant to tell the story of this imperfect family because at first passing glance, you see a normal, nuclear family standing in front of a nice house. The viewers are meant to look around the painting and notice more and more abnormalities the longer they inspect it. A few of the things I’d like onlookers to notice are the "For Sale" sign, the blood splatter on the old little boy's clothes and hands, the bruises on the woman and the tears in her eyes, and the bottle nestled in the bushes' leaves.

At birth, she received the dress, and wore it the entire first day of her life. At this point, the dress was a blank canvas. Nothing but white cloth covered her soft skin. On her next birthday, the girl was placed in her dress, but it had gained a single flower on the shoulder. Her mother told her that as she grew, the dress would grow with her and she would receive a new flower on her dress. In her mid 20s, she noticed that the flowers were forming a sort of vine across the dress, and by 50, the entire front of her dress was covered in the vine. Although the dress didn't grow much after that, it was still embellished every year with a new flower. She put on her dress for her 100th birthday and the flowers had created a full circle around her dress, resembling a sash. She wondered where her next flower would go because her sash was complete, but mid-thought, she collapsed. Her daughter found her shortly after, but it was too late. At the funeral, the girl was buried in her dress.

The bond between mother and child is so fragile, yet also extremely strong. This auspicious ideology surrounding maternity is nothing short of absolute truth but in its entirety, it is the physical and psychological connection that binds a being to its biological offspring. It is something that is so natural and beautiful. I've given the mother an extremely neutral tone in this piece, further complimented by the lighting and the position of the face. The child, however, holds a rather curious tone, constantly wondering, yet still with the sensibilities of his or her mother to keep the mindset on a stable path. The inconsistencies in the colors represent conflict throughout the relationship. The composition of the piece portrays that maternity is never the centerpiece of a relationship but will always be a focal point.

I always love to find artsy things to do in my community and Compassion through Fashion was one of them. Compassion Through Fashion is a recycled material fashion show my city holds every year to raise money for the homeless. I am usually a model for a friend or just helping with a design, but last year I went rogue and created my own dress. So I combined my favorite craft and fashion design together and made a Pom Pom dress. Every Pom Pom and tassel is hand made by me. It took me about a month to create this dress and I had so much fun doing it.

My name is Veronika Mia Leath and I love abstract art! While in kindergarten, I created my own style. I do detailed artwork in vibrant colors. This painting is inspired by nature. I spend a lot of time by the ocean and that is how the picture, Ocean of Youth, was born.

My family and I visited the South Carolina State Museum and they had an exhibit called “Early American Face Vessels from the George H. Meyer Collection.” There were over 100 different face vessels from all over the south. Twenty of them were from South Carolina! When we came home, I decided that I wanted to try and make my own jugs, but I did not want them to be scary. The jugs are me and my best friend Dash, my 2-year-old cockapoo.

I love animals and enjoy drawing animals in their different habitats. I felt inspired to try and capture the special lighting from learning about polar bears around the Northern Lights. I used pastels to create shadows and show light bouncing off of the snowy ice setting. I love how you can use pastels to blend and really capture the layers of the mountains and the reflections of light. I wanted this baby polar bear to be the focus as she is stepping out to see the beauty all around her for the first time. I tried to create texture on her body to look like snow.

My favorite creature is the various dinosaurs I read about. My inspiration was those dinosaurs. I wanted to use my artwork to show a dinosaur with character.

Lola and Marley are the names of my two dogs that have recently passed away. Lola is the brown dog on the left and Marley is the golden dog on the right. The two both passed away within 24 hours of each other. Marley was an older dog who suffered from nasal cancer, which caused her to have nosebleeds the last couple of months of her life. Once Marley passed, Lola let her unknown sickness take over and sadly passed away the next day. I went from having two dogs to no dogs. Coming home to an empty house expecting to be greeted by your pets and coming home to nothing hits hard. After dealing with the difficult stages of grief, I’ve decided to make a painting of both of them to honor their life and everything they’ve done for my family. This painting is a gift for my two parents who are still grieving over my dogs. My intent is to pass on something my parents can have to help with their loss as well.

I was born in Valparaiso, Indiana and my mom was born in Illinois. I remember our trips to Chicago and when we would go to the Cloud Gate. My uncle lives about 30 minutes from Chicago and when we go to visit them, we see our favorite baseball team. Go Cubs! I will always remember the day of my first Cubs game. My favorite view is to see the skyline from Lincoln Park Zoo and I chose to do a painting to represent that. My sister is moving to Chicago for a summer internship so I am planning to give this to her as a gift to decorate her apartment. She is so excited to put it up in her room.

This is a painting of my fantasy island at sunset. I used acrylic paint. I created a blend of purples for my sky and I made my water look like a reflection. I worked on this painting for several weeks. It took a long time to paint the leaves on the trees and to work on the clouds. I am proud of this artwork.

"Black Love" is a portrait of one of my older cousins and her fiance. I call them Auntie Dri and Uncle Dang. They are my favorites. They love me, my family, their family and each other so much. We all eat together, travel, laugh, learn, grow and have fun together. That's what Black Love is to me.