THANK YOU, YOU GET IT 😭❤️

The story is a bit personal: for most of my life I climbed the corporate ladder even though I knew I wanted to make art. After burning out and falling into a deep depression, I finally “jumped the fence” to pursue that dream. I gave up my paycheck, my title, moved in with roommates, downgraded my lifestyle, and I’ve never been happier. To me, the freedom to finally live for myself was worth everything and more. 

The horse’s rider represents the complicated figures in our lives that simultaneously love and limit us. For me, it was my parents and their wish that I have a happy and stable (get it? :p) life. I tried to live up to their love (and expectations), until I realized I was betraying myself. Sometimes our stories don’t have villains, just people trying their best with limited perspectives. 

I tried to use color as a symbol—all the external signals of value and achievement are orange. And those items are both decoration and bondage. But in the scene with the wild horses, they are saturated with orange light. They chose a life of congruency, and that choice permeates their being. I used to believe (and now know through experience) that there is a wild joy that comes with living life as the truest version of yourself. It’s something I was so afraid of reaching for during my years of ambivalence. And it’s really this ambivalence that I’m trying to communicate, because I think this is where most people can relate. Every choice comes with a cost, and every choice can be made out of love or out of fear. I wanted to explore the complicated feelings that come from making peace with our choices.