We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Aran Penumbra a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Aran, thanks for joining us today. Has your work ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized?

I’ve always felt like an outcast. Sometimes it really is like that, but other times I would say it’s all in my head. Anyhow, people frequently ask why am I the way I am. I’d say it is because my understanding of the world is different to theirs or my way of living is not like theirs, but that doesn’t make me less nor more, just different. The same thing happens to my artistic work. When people see my photographs or paintings, they often make some funny faces and ask what are the artworks about because I usually use abstract and symbolic elements to represent the concept behind the visual representation.

I’ve always thought that an artwork’s “original meaning” is not relevant when someone is watching or experiencing it for the first time. When someone sees my art and asks about it, I always ask them back, what do you see? How does it speak to you? Maybe they will misunderstand the “original meaning”, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is what they perceive, how and why they see and interpret the piece. That tells more about the inner world of the person watching than about the artwork itself, and that’s what fascinates me about the relationships between art and human beings.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’ve been a visual artist for 4 years now. When I was a child, I always said that I liked drawing and creating. My mom shared this passion with me, she always had me and my brother painting the walls, decorating, and painting stuff. However, growing up, I lost connection with my artistic self until I forgot I really liked drawing and painting. It wasn’t until the covid-19 pandemic and lockdown that I connected with my deepest self and started reconnecting with art through pain, trauma and healing.

I’m a graphic design undergraduate student. Through college and trial and error I’ve learnt a lot of what makes me as an artist. I started my artistic journey in my first semester of college through photography and digital art, but little by little I’ve tried painting, collage, and other techniques that have become part of how I express myself, my memories and my way of thinking. Now I’m in my last semester and my visual style of creating has been materializing in something between black and white photography, abstract and symbolic elements, and vibrant colors.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

As I mentioned, before, growing up I lost connection with my artistic self. I could even say I gradually lost connection with my whole self. The 2020 lockdown was a crucial time in my life because a lot of bad memories that I had forgotten and emotions I had bottled up all exploded and flooded my mind at the same time. What amnesia had distorted or erased returned, and memories of abuse, gaslight and assault came back all at once.

Those were really tough times for me because I didn’t have a healthy way to deal with everything at the same time with the pandemic, starting college for a second time and some difficult family problems in my house. However, with all the terrible things that returned, some broken pieces of my true self returned too. That’s where and how I got back to creating. Art was the only healthy way I could deal with everything.

With time, therapy and lots of artworks created, I now can say I have made peace with a lot of the bad memories that came back and have assembled big part of who I am from the broken pieces I had. From now on, I’m excited to explore new realms and emotions through life and art.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

From now on, I’ve made it my goal to capture through art what I experience to have a record and be able to remember it whenever I forget it. Even if the things I live are good or bad, exciting or painful, I want to remember and I want to share it with loved ones and whoever needs to see it, because, as I said, art can be a medium for people to explore their own minds through interpretation.

Also, I want to discover what lies beyond other people’s artworks. Who knows what can be found there? Maybe someone has had a really intense way of living and shares it through art. Maybe they feel emotions more than how I can feel them and, through art, me and the world can know how it is to experience such thing. Knowing the stories behind the authors let’s us live new lives through their art. Knowing that and discovering new ways of living is what drives my creative and personal journey in this new stage of life.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://aranpenumbra.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_aran_penumbra/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@aranpenumbra