Taylor Lim

My series explores aspects of my past and present friendships. I want to show the complexities of those relationships, and hopefully understand them better myself. Originally, my series was only about codependency (Don’t Grow Up). However, I realized that it was too narrow and didn’t cover the full extent of my experiences, especially considering the beginning of high school versus now. Both my lightest and darkest points have been because of this, so I expanded the negative with things like jealousy (Side Eye), and the positive with comfortability (In Good Company) and my friends being a “light in the dark” (First Light).

I spent time repurposing old character’s designs, developing their facial features, bodies, and butterflies to be more distinct. I also worked on my compositions,as well as utilized grayscale/fully black backgrounds, to best indicate each piece’s meaning. In Focus, the colored characters present them as the focus, while the jagged paper physically blocks out the others, representing tunnel vision. In Strangers Again, the grayscale character represents the loss of a friendship and previous closeness. My past friendships are part of me, and I want to learn and grow from them for my present and future.