Reflection

I started a project in 2018 called "Oasis CR: Marine Crisis Canvas Project" that consisted of a series of paintings that illustrated ocean life problems to help raise awareness. My goal was for people to look at these and be more aware of humans' destruction of marine ecosystems and life. I wanted my audience to feel melancholy over the loss of our beautiful marine life and maybe even feel compelled to make a change in their daily lives. I displayed them at my school and presented it before eight judges. They all loved my idea and urged me to continue my project. Students were shocked when they saw my paintings and agreed with my ideas. I taught kids as young as 5 years old how they could reduce their plastic consumption and the importance of picking up any trash they saw. This gave them hope that they could make a change and help make a greener and cleaner future. In addition, I had a petition for the municipality of Costa Rica to ban single-use plastic with over 100 signatures! "A Look Into the Future" painting portrays a possible reality in the future inspired by photographer Michael Dyrland's collection. I used his photographs as a reference to create my own version of his idea. "You see a difference, they don't" was taken from a widespread quote from MEDASSET: "You see the difference, a turtle does not." The coral reef bleaching transformation was inspired by images on the internet that show the exact same coral before and after bleaching.