My true adventure started when we moved to Nepal and began living a completely unusual life. Suddenly I found myself in massive ceremonies, surrounded by monks and paintings of deities and stories. Tibetan monastery walls tell stories, of great warriors subduing evil emotions in the shape of demons and of princes embarking on a spiritual journey. It was what really set me on the path of loving visual language and storytelling, I became fascinated in the colours and the bizarre depictions of the wrathful deities. Nepal was really the start and most significant moment of my childhood. Living there however was by no means an easy task, my parents suffered from extreme culture shock when we first arrived. Having daily electricity cuts and cows roaming the streets was indeed not normal to us, but because of my young age nothing surprised me. I adapted to my surroundings.

My ability to adapt has been tested my whole life. By now I have lived in five different continents, leaving friends behind every three years or so to go somewhere new. Though it did prove difficult at times this lifestyle has really helped me to understand many different cultures and therefore be more open-minded. However I actually feel the most at home, out of everywhere I have lived, in Bangkok, Thailand. My connection with Bangkok has always been strong, from the first time I arrived in Asia there hasn’t been a single year I have not visited. I believe a lot of this comfort I feel in Thailand is because my values and views seem to align with them better than anywhere else. They value respect, compassion, kindness, mindfulness, cause and effect (karma), and patience which all originate from Buddhism too or at least in my experience they do.

It wasn’t until I lived in Australia that I truly decided I wanted to be an artist (of some sort at least). As my high school years began I started to question what I wanted to do with my life. My principles told me I had to do something to help the world and bring joy to others. I think it finally struct me that art could do that when I stood in front of my final major project for visual arts and noticed what an impact it had on others. The work titled “If slaughter houses had glass walls” was by no means revolutionary, but I felt at that moment I was doing my best to spread awareness of a subject matter I felt was important. One gap year later and an accidental last minute plan to move to London, I am now learning how to develop my skill further and start a career in illustration.