Young artist explores her next chapter
Texarkana and the surrounding areas are home to a wealth of artists. The community is full of painters, sculptors, authors, graphic designers, woodworkers and countless other creatives and craftspeople who make the world a little brighter. One such artist is Kaiola Sooman.
Texarkana resident Sooman, 18, is a senior at Garrett Memorial Christian School in Hope, Arkansas. Sooman was set to have her first solo exhibition at the John F. Moss Library at Texas A&M UniversityTexarkana, but the precautionary closing of campus due to the threat of COVID-19 cut it short.
Her art was taken down mere days after the reception that was held to celebrate the exhibition’s opening. According to library director Teri Stover, the 67-piece collection took up all of the walls on the library’s third floor.
The exhibition, titled “The Next Chapter,” was meant to signify a new milestone in Sooman’s life, marking the end of her high school art career and the beginning of her professional one.
While this setback is both unforeseen and disheartening, it does absolutely nothing to diminish the significance of her many accomplishments so far.
Although she is young, Sooman has had great success in her career, both locally and nationally. In addition to her local training, she has studied art in Idyllwild, California, Dallas, Texas and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
She has also won awards or placed highly in the Texarkana Regional Arts & Humanities Council’s annual juried student exhibits, the Congressional Art Competition, the Four States Fair, and Young Arkansas Artists art contests. Sooman was the state winner for Google’s 2019 Doogle4Google design contest, as well as the 2019 Scholastic Arts & Writing Gold Key Award winner in both the painting and editorial cartoon categories.
For most creatives, their art is an extension of themselves, and for Sooman it is no different. Although some images are included for the sake of aestheticism, the majority of the visuals in her art are symbolic, often relating to her own memories and life experiences. She says she approaches each piece like a diary entry, which makes her work deeply personal and cathartic.
“Drawing is my way of venting, to communicate the things I’m afraid to say out loud,” she explained.
She pours all of her feelings, her struggles and her breakthroughs into her work and she hopes it allows the people who view it to do the same. While she is perfectly content knowing that her work might not make immediate sense to anyone but her, Sooman wants to connect with and inspire others through her art.
“There’s something momentous and inspiring about getting on the same emotional level as someone else,” she continued. “I want to say something along the lines of ‘I understand what you’re going through because I’m going through the same thing.’”
She likens her work to avant-garde and macabre art, in which the connection between the concept behind a piece and the odd subject portrayed may not be totally clear. She likes to explore the contrast between humor and morbidness, often using “soft, cute visuals” to depict dark concepts.
Sooman describes her general style as illustrative and “comic-like,” which is evident from her use of bold colors and line work. She finds inspiration in the work of other artists across various mediums, like Chiara Bautista, Kim Jung Gi, Karl Kopinski, Kwon Hea Lin, and Jack Stauber.
Sooman is quite well-rounded as an artist. Though her preferred medium is pen and ink, she has experience with oil and acrylic paint, graphite, printmaking, sculpture, charcoal, and mixed media (paper collage).
After graduation, she plans to attend University of Arkansas-Fayetteville, where she will major in studio art with an emphasis on illustration. She hopes to work as an animator, or an illustrator for storybooks and comics.
In her later years, she wants to become an art teacher. In the meantime, Kaiola volunteers at her mother’s pediatric clinic, where she paints interior murals. She also takes on commissions and enters art competitions. When she is not making art, she enjoys playing the piano and skateboarding.
If you would like to see more of Kaiola’s work, you can follow her on Instagram (@sumguyinahoodie).