Alia El-bermani

Hear Me, oil, 40 x 30" (102 x 76 cm)

INSPIRATION

My painting Hear Me depicts my friend Tamara. She is a tiny person with a big personality who has inspired several of my works. Over the course of several years, while posing for me and my classes, we have had some wonderful conversations about what it is to be female today and for her, what it is to be an African-american woman. We both agree, that there is still much ground to be made toward equity in all levels of our society. This painting is a response to help raise the voices of women.

ARTISTIC PATH

Growing up, I thought my brother was the artist of the family. It came so naturally for him. I knew I enjoyed making art, but I didn’t have confidence in my skill to dare to dream to be an artist. Instead, I invested most of my time into becoming a dancer. By my sophomore year in high school I was dancing professionally with the Boston Ballet. After high school, I briefly attempted to be a double major between dance and art at a large liberal arts college in Rhode Island. I quickly burned out and decided to take some time off to decide my future. I did a lot of research into degree granting art programs that had a strong emphasis on teaching representational skills and found Laguna College of Art and Design. There I learned not only the skills of seeing, painting and drawing, but I was also encouraged to develop my concepts. Discovering the “how” and “why” became equally important and ingrained in my process.