Mailan Nguyen
Assistant Business Manager
From making arts and crafts to presenting at an art show, Mira Costa senior Nathalie Sung uses art to express her thoughts and feelings.
RAW, a network that spotlights independent talent in visual art, film, fashion and music, featured Sung in one of its recent shows called IMPACT.
“I’ve always liked arts and crafts as a kid, and when I was about eight I started taking classes at a studio called Kids Art and that’s what started to get me really interested in art,” Sung said. “After that, I took classes there every Saturday until sophomore year.”
As an eighth grader at Manhattan Beach Middle School, Sung took advanced art which allowed her to be in the Art 2 class as a freshman at Costa. By her sophomore year, Sung was able to advance into AP Studio Art, which enabled her to work on her own style and see other students’ creative processes, Sung said.
“Because of AP Studio Art, I was given a lot of opportunities, and one of those was being able to try out for an art program called Ryman Arts,” Sung said. “In these classes, there were no grades; I got to learn and practice without the pressure of having my art graded and learning just for the purpose of learning.”
Sung applied to the Ryman arts program, a three semester long non-profit organization that provides professional fine arts classes along with college and career planning to talented youth in southern California. Sung joined the program in order to improve and fine-tune her skills.
“During the second semester of Ryman Arts, there was a lot of watercoloring, figure drawing and basically just trying to do things quickly, all of which are not my strong suit, so I got to work on improving these skills,” Sung said. “Being in a class where I was surrounded by like-minded people also allowed me to be myself and made learning much easier and more comfortable.”
After posting pictures of her new art pieces on her art Instagram account, Sung received an email from RAW Artists asking to feature some of the art in their show called IMPACT.
“Through the Ryman Arts class and after all the lessons and help I got with my drawing, I definitely noticed a huge difference in my work.” Sung said. “It pushed me to stop focusing on making everything perfect.”
According to Sung, her art is usually a form of realism or hyperrealism.
“Being in this art show is a huge opportunity for me because I can get more connections and just have my name out there,” Sung said. “Even though I haven’t developed my own style yet, to be recognized for my work has made me more comfortable to try different styles.”
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