My aspiration has always been to affect societal change, particularly in how minorities are perceived. I've come to realize that artists wield significant influence through social media, a realization inspired by the cartoons and shows of my youth. Growing up, I struggled to connect with characters who didn't resemble me, compounded by the challenges of overcoming a speech impediment. Art became my sanctuary, a means to express my emotions and bridge the gap in communication that hindered my connections with others. Overcoming my speech impediment transformed me into a more articulate individual, empowering me to advocate through art, a constant companion throughout my journey. Today, I am determined to ensure that children like me find representation and connection in the media they consume. Coming from Costa Rica and Nicaragua, where my family has primarily been involved in farming and agriculture, pursuing an art career has been a solitary path. These countries lack significant representation in the global art scene, often favoring those from generational wealth and established artistic lineages. However, these challenges have ignited a fervor within me to prove that impactful contributions can emerge from any background, regardless of financial standing. Receiving this scholarship will greatly contribute to my journey towards achieving college success. It will enable me to create a conducive and comfortable learning environment at the university I am currently attending. Due to my financial circumstances, I have been unable to purchase the necessary items for college, and the limited appliances at home restrict me from bringing anything with me. As an aspiring artist, my passion lies in sharing creative ideas and bringing them to life. The environment in which I reside plays a crucial role in sparking my creativity, and having a dedicated workspace that inspires and motivates me is essential for creating my art pieces.

In a world of modern technology, we are rapidly advancing as a society physically and virtually. I love to explore different interactions between people and modern technology, often researching how different age groups are familiar with the technology of their time or patterns in searching for topics on the web. Since the internet expands every second of the day, there are so many things we can learn from and implement into our lives, whether it's physically or virtually. I’m fascinated by our modern technology since it’s something not even the greatest engineers can fully understand, yet the beauty of learning through these meticulous devices motivates me to share how society can have very different experiences on the internet. AI has been prevalent when it comes to art making, and while I don’t use AI to create my art pieces, it’s interesting to see how AI is being both criticized and admired by the public. Since AI is relatively new, I like to theorize how it can be utilized in the future, which is something I want to further explore in my art. Diversity is very important to me; being from Costa Rica and Nicaragua has affected me greatly in my pursuit of an art degree. In my family, I’m the only person that's truly pursuing an art career. They’re both small countries, so they aren’t frequently represented in the art world. As someone from Central America, I rarely see any Latinx/Hispanics pursuing their talents in art, and the industry doesn’t acknowledge Central America. Because of my background, I hope to impact a younger audience to be confident in pursuing any artistic career. I want to understand the philosophy of media impacting different audiences. Central America doesn’t have access to all of modern technology, heavily impacting their lifestyle. I want to research different solutions to making our technology diverse throughout smaller countries and connecting these minorities with the greater world. Proper representation is a big issue in the media, and it's something I want to fix through my art. For any TV show, cartoon, or any form of social media, Hispanics are usually generalized for stereotypes and similar motifs when portrayed in media. This generalization of the community heavily impacts their self-identity and confidence in their heritage, because there are so many different cultures that are vastly different for every Hispanic country, and generalizing the community only belittles their culture from their country. Properly representing each country in the Hispanic community can be effectively done by hiring more Hispanics from countries we haven’t seen before taking big roles in media. For example, someone from Costa Rica taking a lead role in a TV show, or including models from Nicaragua in upcoming fashion shows. If these Hispanics from smaller countries take big roles in media, it can educate everyone who isn’t Hispanic the cultural diversity in media, and it can inspire other minorities to pursue a creative profession in the industry of media and entertainment. Moreover, I want to explore how technology influences our art-making, because we have easy access to create anything with ease. I am using technology every day, so considering different experiences with technology makes me curious about how modern tech is influencing everyone’s lives. I’m interested in not just modern technology, but how the history of technology has impacted society and our way of living. Doing more research on these topics in the future will help me learn valuable skills in engaging my work with the public.

The world is surrounded by entertainment to sustain happiness within our day to day lives. I envision myself as an Art Director. Someone who changes how an audience perceives your work and whether or not it's eye-catching enough to interact with your project. A leader who strives to work for a team and bring a level of cohesion to the table is how I want to envision myself in the future. I've always taken so many interests and developed so many ideas for various projects, such as creating music, designing logos, creating character concepts and doing layouts for twitch channels, yet I jump from one interest to another and can't keep consistent with one solid idea. I want to apply those creative ideas in the industry to make changes in society. Topics like representing a minority can be exemplified by any project. I'm willing to face that challenge. Connecting with others who share similar ideas and want to show it to the world is something I adore the most. A strong leader needs to create a balance in the industry, including hearing everyone out on their ideas to push out a beautiful project for others to enjoy. The goal is to step into the industry with new concepts and push creative minds further to create something enjoyable for everyone and promote inclusivity amongst everyone from different backgrounds Diversity is very important to me; being from Costa Rica and Nicaragua has affected me greatly in my pursuit of an art degree. In my family, I’m the only person that's truly pursuing an art career. They’re both small countries, so they aren’t frequently represented in the art world. As someone from Central America, I rarely see any Latinx/Hispanics pursuing their talents in art, and the industry doesn’t acknowledge Central America. Because of my background, I hope to impact a younger audience to be confident in pursuing any artistic career. I want to understand the philosophy of media impacting different audiences. Central America doesn’t have access to all of modern technology, heavily impacting their lifestyle. I want to research different solutions to making our technology diverse throughout smaller countries and connecting these minorities with the greater world. Proper representation is a big issue in the media, and it's something I want to fix through my art. For any TV show, cartoon, or any form of social media, Hispanics are usually generalized for stereotypes and similar motifs when portrayed in media. This generalization of the community heavily impacts their self-identity and confidence in their heritage, because there are so many different cultures that are vastly different for every Hispanic country, and generalizing the community only belittles their culture from their country. Properly representing each country in the Hispanic community can be effectively done by hiring more Hispanics from countries we haven’t seen before taking big roles in media. For example, someone from Costa Rica taking a lead role in a TV show, or including models from Nicaragua in upcoming fashion shows. If these Hispanics from smaller countries take big roles in media, it can educate everyone who isn’t Hispanic the cultural diversity in media, and it can inspire other minorities to pursue a creative profession in the industry of media and entertainment.

Throughout my academic career, I’ve dedicated myself to getting the education I need for my adulthood. My aspirations were to become a person that can impact society in a positive manner, and I discovered that artists are the people who change the world. As someone from Central America, I rarely see any latinx/hispanics pursuing their talents in the art industry. Looking through all the cartoons and shows I grew up watching, I couldn't connect myself with characters that don’t look like me, and it was hard to relate because of the way I grew up. Now as I’m older, I want other children to feel a connection with the media and luckily society has become more diverse towards a wider audience, which I want to help impact with my creative skills. Last summer, I attended a pre-college course with a school group in New York City, a major step in my creative process. Being in the city inspired me to think about different perspectives on technology and how we are being affected by newer technology such as virtual reality. The scholarship program appointed me to be the lead coordinator for the other students who also made work in New York City, and with my leadership position, I created a beautiful exhibition representing the works all the students in the program have made during those weeks in New York City. Because of this position, it opened me to a new side of the art world, and it made me feel inclined to do more activities in the creative directing field. Although these accomplishments soon followed with heavy challenges to overcome. During Covid-19 I had to overcome a huge struggle that heavily impacted me mentally and physically. Within 5 months into quarantine the economic instability impacted my family financially, resulting in an eviction from our own home. I was so scared, to lose a home where creative ideas are born, and luckily we managed to get an air bnb, but I had to throw away half of my belongings because the place was small. I stayed at this temporary apartment for an entire month, because we still couldn’t find a home. But even with this instability I kept on practicing my art skills. It motivated me to work more on my art and myself as a person. I also managed to maintain a good academic record, having the mindset of not giving up, and these hardships will soon pass. My goal is to become a leader who strives to work for a team and bring a level of cohesion to the table is how I want to envision myself in the future. I've always taken so many interests and developed so many ideas for various projects, such as creating music, designing logos, creating character concepts and doing layouts for twitch channels, yet I jump from one interest to another and can't keep consistent with one solid idea. I want to apply those creative ideas in the industry to make changes in society. Topics like representing a minority can be exemplified by any project. I'm willing to face that challenge. Connecting with others who share similar ideas and want to show it to the world is something I adore the most. A strong leader needs to create a balance in the industry, including hearing everyone out on their ideas to push out a beautiful project for others to enjoy. The goal is to step into the industry with new concepts and push creative minds further to create something enjoyable for everyone.

In a world of modern technology, we are rapidly advancing as a society physically and virtually. I love to explore different interactions between people and modern technology, often researching how different age groups are familiar with the technology of their time or patterns in searching for topics on the web. Since the internet expands every second of the day, there are so many things we can learn from and implement into our lives, whether it's physically or virtually. I’m fascinated by our modern technology since it’s something not even the greatest engineers can fully understand, yet the beauty of learning through these meticulous devices motivates me to share how society can have very different experiences on the internet. AI has been prevalent when it comes to art making, and while I don’t use AI to create my art pieces, it’s interesting to see how AI is being both criticized and admired by the public. Since AI is relatively new, I like to theorize how it can be utilized in the future, which is something I want to further explore in my art. Diversity is very important to me; being from Costa Rica and Nicaragua has affected me greatly in my pursuit of an art degree. In my family, I’m the only person that's truly pursuing an art career. They’re both small countries, so they aren’t frequently represented in the art world. As someone from Central America, I rarely see any Latinx/Hispanics pursuing their talents in art, and the industry doesn’t acknowledge Central America. Because of my background, I hope to impact a younger audience to be confident in pursuing any artistic career. I want to understand the philosophy of media impacting different audiences. Central America doesn’t have access to all of modern technology, heavily impacting their lifestyle. I want to research different solutions to making our technology diverse throughout smaller countries and connecting these minorities with the greater world. Proper representation is a big issue in the media, and it's something I want to fix through my art. For any TV show, cartoon, or any form of social media, Hispanics are usually generalized for stereotypes and similar motifs when portrayed in media. This generalization of the community heavily impacts their self-identity and confidence in their heritage, because there are so many different cultures that are vastly different for every Hispanic country, and generalizing the community only belittles their culture from their country. Properly representing each country in the Hispanic community can be effectively done by hiring more Hispanics from countries we haven’t seen before taking big roles in media. For example, someone from Costa Rica taking a lead role in a TV show, or including models from Nicaragua in upcoming fashion shows. If these Hispanics from smaller countries take big roles in media, it can educate everyone who isn’t Hispanic the cultural diversity in media, and it can inspire other minorities to pursue a creative profession in the industry of media and entertainment. Moreover, I want to explore how technology influences our art-making, because we have easy access to create anything with ease. I am using technology every day, so considering different experiences with technology makes me curious about how modern tech is influencing everyone’s lives. I’m interested in not just modern technology, but how the history of technology has impacted society and our way of living. Doing more research on these topics in the future will help me learn valuable skills in engaging my work with the public.

Diversity is very important to me; being from Costa Rica and Nicaragua has affected me greatly in my pursuit of an art degree. In my family, I’m the only person that's truly pursuing an art career, especially becoming a Creative Director. They’re both small countries, so they aren’t frequently represented in the art world. As someone from Central America, I rarely see any Latinx/Hispanics pursuing their talents in art, and the industry doesn’t acknowledge Central America. Because of my background, I hope to impact a younger audience to be confident in pursuing any artistic career. I want to understand the philosophy of media impacting different audiences. Central America doesn’t have access to all of modern technology, heavily impacting their lifestyle. I want to research different solutions to making our technology diverse throughout smaller countries and connecting these minorities with the greater world. Moreover, I want to explore how technology influences our art-making, because we have easy access to create anything with ease. I am using technology every day, so considering different experiences with technology makes me curious about how modern tech is influencing everyone’s lives. I’m interested in not just modern technology, but how the history of technology has impacted society and our way of living. Because of society's generalization of the Hispanic community, certain people naturally won't accept anything unfamiliar to them and will disregard such things no matter how many times you correct that person. Depending on where I go for college, there are bound to be people who will discriminate against me for my background. I won't let that get in the way of creating ideas and artwork that will impact other audiences. We are now in an advanced society where people are becoming more aware of others' cultural backgrounds, and I want to contribute to the representation that the media is sharing nowadays. Proper representation is a big issue in the media. For any TV show, cartoon, or any form of social media, Hispanics are usually generalized for stereotypes and similar motifs when portrayed in media. This generalization of the community heavily impacts their self-identity and confidence in their heritage, because there are so many different cultures that are vastly different for every Hispanic country, and generalizing the community only belittles their culture from their country. Properly representing each country in the Hispanic community can be effectively done by hiring more Hispanics from countries we haven’t seen before taking big roles in media. For example, someone from Costa Rica taking a lead role in a TV show, or including models from Nicaragua in upcoming fashion shows. If these Hispanics from smaller countries take big roles in media, it can educate everyone who isn’t Hispanic about the cultural diversity in media, and it can inspire other minorities to pursue a creative profession in the industry of media and entertainment.

Creating art throughout my life has helped me go through my most challenging moments in life. During COVID, I had to overcome a huge struggle that heavily impacted me mentally and physically. 5 months into quarantine the economic instability impacted my family financially, resulting in an eviction from our own home. My outlet at the time was uploading videos on TikTok, drawing scenarios and comedic skits just for fun, but it was during this time that I accomplished something grand. One of my videos blew up and I gained 30,000 followers in a week. Now, I have 130,000 followers on my social media page. At that time, I never really considered myself to become a content creator, but after getting a high following, it motivated me to think about my future career as an artist and made me realize the potential I have if I pursued art after high school. Most media that I see on the internet relate to cinematography and animated shows which have heavily influenced my art. During my AP Art class in my junior year of high school, I got to explore different perspectives in technology which is something people are attuned to nowadays, especially with AI, and I want to portray that in my artwork. When I started making artwork about tech, I submitted one about the dangers of abusing the use of the internet and it got a silver key for a scholastics award. I am fascinated by our modern technology since it’s something not even the greatest engineers can fully understand, yet the beauty of learning through these meticulous devices motivates me to share how society can have very different experiences regarding the internet. Since virtual and augmented reality is relatively new, I like to theorize how it can be utilized in the future, something I want to further explore in my art. Diversity is very important to me; being from Costa Rica and Nicaragua has affected me greatly in my pursuit of an art degree. In my family, I’m the only person that's truly pursuing an art career. They’re both small countries, so they aren’t frequently represented in the art world. As someone from Central America, I rarely see any Latinx/Hispanics pursuing their talents in art, and the industry doesn’t acknowledge Central America. Because of my background, I hope to impact a younger audience to be confident in pursuing any artistic career. I want to understand the philosophy of media impacting different audiences. Central America doesn’t have access to all of modern technology, heavily impacting their lifestyle. I want to research different solutions to making our technology diverse throughout smaller countries and connecting these minorities with the greater world. Moreover, I want to explore how technology influences our art-making, because we have easy access to create anything with ease. I am using technology every day, so considering different experiences with technology makes me curious about how modern tech is influencing everyone’s lives. I’m interested in not just modern technology, but how the history of technology has impacted society and our way of living. Doing more research on these topics at an art university will help me learn valuable skills on engaging my work with the public.

The world of technology is my main creative drive. My artwork explores different interactions between people and modern technology. Often showing how different age groups are familiar with the technology of their time or patterns in searching for topics on the web. Engaging with people's relationship with technology can take a positive and negative perspective. The work I create traverses through a figurative and literal viewpoint towards technology through painting exaggerated perspectives and forced spaces. My work uses these different materials to demonstrate different points of view on how various people interact with technology and the emotions that they emit from connecting with the internet because I’m very fascinated by how technology expands every day and more information gets put on the internet for people to see and learn. I have an unbiased perspective on technology so if there’s an opinion about the internet I find interesting, I research about it to create my pieces with the materials I put on it. Some of my work just portrays different devices and the complex patterns beneath them, which is intriguing to me because of the amount of information that can be stored in these places. AI has been prevalent when it comes to art making, and while I don’t use AI to create my art pieces, it’s interesting to see how AI is being both criticized and admired by the public. Since AI is relatively new, I like to theorize how it can be utilized in the future, which is something I want to further explore in my art. Because of this unbiased perspective, it can bring awareness to how we use technology today, and people can utilize technology in more ways than one. My artwork would also show the consequences of overusing technology, and at the same time, demonstrate how the internet is also a place for growth and since it's a free platform we can learn as much as we want. People can just search for ways to contribute to their community so the world can be a better place. Having an extra 24 hours would be more than enough for me to promote what my work is about. I have a lot of different project ideas such as devices supporting learning in virtual reality and hearing aids that are designed to look aesthetically pleasing for those who need them and want to be in the fashion industry for example. During these 24 hours, I want to make designs that are easily accessible, helping minorities and improving the mental and physical health of the community. For example, a series of prosthetic designs are designed to tailor a person’s style and personality. I believe prosthetic limbs shouldn’t be limited and should freely express one’s identity. The customization of these prosthetics is utilized for various fashion shoots to promote models that need prosthetics. Diversity in media is developing every day and this prosthetic can be a start for disabled models wearing prosthetics. Music heavily impacts moments when I get creative. Whenever I'm anywhere and listening to my favorite tunes, I gain innovative ideas that pertain to designing artworks connecting with technology in some way or another. It's a journey of various emotions that travel along with my creative process when it comes to drawing and designing. In other cases, when I look at certain minorities on the internet, It makes me think about ways that we can represent these communities on the internet. It drives me towards those groups because I come from a small country in Central America, something I can relate to with these minorities.

Out of everyone that I knew in my life, I stood out as "the art kid". Although I never felt secluded from the rest of my peers, it was something that I was passionate about and everyone understood that. When quarantine started, I felt so alone so when transitioning from middle school to high school I got into the high school where all my friends went to. It would be better I thought, because I would take my art classes and still talk to my middle school buddies. The art program at this school wasn't the best though, I felt very limited with my creativity and received assignments that didn't spark the joy I would've felt drawing in the past. An acquaintance of mine mentioned this art school that was relatively challenging to get into, and even though I was already a freshman, what have I got to lose? Art wasn't just a hobby for me, I've always wanted to make art into a career, even if I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do with art. I wasn't happy where I was anyway, yet I knew the transition wasn't going to be easy. Time passed as my anxiety increased for each grain of sand that passed through the hourglass of anticipation. Applying to another high school with no one that I knew was very risky, yet it was an opportunity that I didn't want to miss. I completed my portfolio on my own and auditioned with others who were ready to leave middle school, and all these benefactors made my heart scream, not out of anxiety, but out of desperation. The moment finally arrives, did I get in? Did my hard work pay off? I blindly shot the apple and hit it in the core. Half of me was excited yet the other half was nervous. I don't know anyone who liked drawing as much as I did, and I left my imagination to think about the billions of scenarios I would experience at this new school. Art school is vastly different from a typical public school, it felt like I was traversing an unknown island with undiscovered creatures. Everyone looked so different, like characters that stand out from an animated show. I arrived at my first class in my first year of art school, where everyone in the grade already knew each other but me. My English teacher introduced me as "the new kid" which was just the cherry on top of the ice cream of shame. Everyone turned to me and gawked at me like owls. When I thought they were going to judge me, it quickly turned into a friendly environment. Before I knew it I was making friends fast, a lot of them had the same interests as me, and the school offered way more opportunities to participate in art competitions. Even though I joined this art school late, I never really felt "new". Being in an art-oriented school has a unique curriculum to a regular high school, and I still keep in touch with one of two friends from my old school. Ever since I transitioned to art school, everyone around me was very ambitious, and passionate about art just like me, and I felt inspired to make more with the help of my peers. If I had never taken the leap of faith to a new school, I would've missed all these opportunities to make new friends, dedicate myself to my artwork, and discover my future career with the help of my teachers and counselors.

My dream is to be a creative director to create new ideas through various media and inspire others to achieve their dreams, as well as provide a good safe home for my mother and my family in Costa Rica.

The main idea of this piece is to visualize the dangers of being surrounded by technology at all times. Nowadays, more and more people are starting to put a lot of factors of their lives in the digital realm known as the internet. This causes most people to depend on their devices wherever they go to function as human beings in this society. Before you know it, they are trapped in a neverending cycle of interconnecting with the internet. The materials used in this piece are magazine paper, construction paper, and gouache. The cables in the piece represent the different paths we go through when we traverse the web. The magazine paper represents the media that we consume on our internet lives. I chose to create a bathtub setting for this piece because it's the most vulnerable place in our homes, so when we put so much of our personal information on the internet, it creates a window for people to see into our safe spaces such as a bathroom for example. Water is also a symbol of the unknown. This perspective emphasizes the size of the tub to portray that people are metaphorically entering deep waters when they let the internet share their data. This goes back to my passion for cybersecurity. While I painted this depiction of how the internet can consume our physical health, I did so in a way to bring awareness that the internet is a scary place, not just to search things on the web. I believe that people don't realize how fast the internet works, because in this world the best security systems to protect your personal information are still vulnerable to hackers who want to sell your data online. So I would love to work in the industry to create a better system to secure people's data to create a safe workspace for people digitally. With this ambition, I turned it into an art piece that I can look over and reflect on what's going on deep down in our devices. What makes this art piece extra special to me is the fact that I painted with gouache for the first time. When I got ahold of this medium, I felt inspired to challenge myself and create a big piece that gives an important message to the viewers who look at my work. I felt proud of my creation. This piece led me to paint other artworks relating to the causes and effects of being on the internet. I look back on this piece from time to time to remind myself of not only the process that I went through but the goals I've placed through this art piece.