Catalina Preciado

Class of 2025

It's been a long, long time, 2024

gouache

In my series, I wanted to portray the feeling of loneliness and how those lonesome feelings can vanish with the help of family. Feeling lonely is a universal experience where one feels disconnected from oneself or others. Family can play a crucial role in alleviating this. They accompany you with endless support and encouragement. In my series I wanted to explore how my family can affect my perspective in life; from feeling alone with no helping hands to all these important figures in my life that I can always turn to.

In the beginning, I just wanted to show how a big family can feel lonely although surrounded by people. Later, I realized that that wasn’t what I truly wanted to paint nor was it fair to my family. Family is the most important aspect of my life, through the big and small, they are always there. When I’m annoyed they’re there because they know I need them. In my series it started very blue: It was an individual, all alone. That’s what I felt, alone. I began with feeling like I was drowning like there was no one there to lend a hand. Then there were fireworks, annoyance, but most highlighted, loneliness. I took a shift to family portraits, framing those important people in my life that helped and continue to help me through everything, those that I grew up with and those I looked up to. Something that helped inspire these works are all those times we all end up talking, singing, and dancing within my family. These are memorable moments with all the laughs we end up sharing and spending time just simply being together. I wanted to capture these moments in my artwork, the memories I share with them.