We recently connected with Klarissa Young and have shared our conversation below.

Klarissa, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

I’m currently working on an illustration book that depicts heartbreak and the state of victimhood and martyrdom that that kind of pain can provoke. This project is meaningful to me because its helping me express my pain from my own heartbreak and see the situation from a third party perspective. I’m learning a lot about myself while getting lost illustrating these pages.

As I drew pages that mirrored how I felt, I realized I was in a constant state of woe is me. I was frustrated with myself that I let a boy influenced me to think my life had little value or importance because he was no longer in it. After a year long pity party I finally realized that I can’t continue life with that attitude. My feelings were valid and always will be but I needed to heal and find the courage to move on. The story of heartache isn’t new and has been told millions of times but wanted to offer the reader a perspective that doesn’t romanticize playing the victim nor make the heartbreaker the villain but encourages the one that’s heartbroken to see the situation neutrally and highlight how stagnant life becomes if you don’t encourage yourself to not be so consumed by emotions and continue to play the victim.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

Just like most creative millennials, Disney movies were a big inspiration for me to become an illustrator, more specifically, the The Little Mermaid. Still to this day I’m in awe by the movement of Ariel’s hair, body and facial expressions. I felt like I was inspired by almost all Disney Princesses, however, there weren’t any black princesses when I was a child. I didn’t realize it at the time but it did cause internal conflict that there was no representation of black people in these beloved movies. I felt like perhaps black isn’t beautiful and that’s why it’s not being represented. In coloring books I’d always color in the skin brown even if it was a white character, and I remember hearing comments from my classmates saying I colored in Ariel incorrectly but in my mind, that’s how I felt more connected to her character.

In my early teens I become hyper aware of the lack of black representation in popular culture especially in industries that I loved such as TV and film. That’s when I vowed to be an artist who always represented black people.

I was beyond stoked to see the anime Boondocks to be created and Princess And The Frog by Disney. And that’s when I began to see the influx of representation in the media.

My mission is to portray women of color in a light that truly shows their beauty and strength. As a storyteller, it’s important to me to make WOC the protagonist and the hero’s to their own story rather than them being supportive characters that help the protagonist. Not only black women need representation but I see a lack of Asian, Indian, Latina, etc. representation. In my illustrations, I want colored people to identify with my illustrations cause they see themselves and their unique phenotype being depicted.

The services I provide are custom portraits/ illustrations.

I am creating a space where people of color can feel confident to commission me to do custom portraits because I experience with drawing dark skin tones, textured hair and other ethnic phenotypes.

I’ve seen so many artist on social media platforms getting praised for their unique style however, they are inexperienced with with using people of color as their muse. I dedicated my skill to avoid that problem.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

I’d love to see a social media platform just for visual artist that has an algorithm that actually works in our favor. My creative peers and I often complain how social media algorithms (especially Instagram) make it very difficult to showcase our work to a new audience because these platforms push content from creators that already have a large audience. When I post, my content is only being shown to such a small percentage of my viewers, it seems like there’s not way to make the algorithm work for for profiles that don’t have a large audience or are have a very specific niche.

With that being said, I’d love to see a platform that will is only show visual art content that would connect fellow artist to local artist and galleries and other art events like meet ups. It would be so beneficial to the art community.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect about being an artist is that I have this lovely gift that I’m able to depict emotion through my illustrations provoke thoughts and conversations for the viewer. I love showing my artwork and have people explain their perception. I love how art makes me feel more connected to everyone.

Another rewarding aspect is getting commissioned to do custom artwork. It’s a great compliment to have some
Spend their hard earned money on you to make their vision come to life.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @merrrrmaiiiid
• Twitter: @sirenita_xo
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@klarissayoung