The Little Dancer series became my primary interest a few years ago. Expression of children through face and body gestures portrays purity and innocence. As they get older, their dancing skills improve and they can control their movement well, but young dancers’ imperfect movement generated from natural gestures and expression inspires me. This focus allows me to capture the most natural moment of human expression and feeling. The movement of dance contains a special excitement, which enhances this expression. Human feelings are infinite. Some feelings are positive like happiness, joy, laughter, smiling, surprise, excitement, expecting, caring, and loving. Some are negative like anger, nervousness, loneliness, anxiousness, and sadness. Sometimes, the combination of both portrays the most naturalistic, human, expression. I depict this complexity through the children, who display their feelings most naturally and purely through every inch of their body.

Oil on canvas and mix media drawing are primarily used in this series. Sometimes a drawing becomes a painting and sometimes vise-versa. The essence of the expression should be the same. Contrasting color combinations and dark and light creates a dramatic atmosphere. These design elements capture a moment containing both energy and feelings. Lost and found contours integrate the figure and ground, thus unifying the scene, which activates the entire picture plane. The variety of mark making enhances movement, where soft or blurry edges give speed to it. Multiple figures move the living energy all over the composition. The individual degree of each dancer’s energy creates rhythm in my painting. Open form, placing figures within and beyond the boundary of the composition expands the space. The scenes are selected from practice, stage rehearsal and listening to the instructor. Often, dancers are more expressive behind the stage. Relaxed body postures, group interaction among students and with their teacher, even fooling, as children like to do, allow me to perceive a greater variety of expressions. Sometimes the nervousness just before the stage appearance is the most intense moment.

Young lives are fresh and open. Their energy and emotion bounces through the space and to the viewers. My art communicates the natural human expression found in children’s dance postures and movement.