"This piece visualizes the creativity children hold and the importance of their impact on older generations as well as those to come. The young girl in the foreground, blowing a bubble, represents our youth—full of imagination and living to experience happiness. Her action releases creativity, inspiring those around her to do the same.”
Sophie Michalewicz, Artist Statement
Sophie Michalewicz
Blowing Bubbles
Acrylic Paint on Canvas
"New Orleans is a city where the full self-expression, leadership, creativity, and culture of all children and youth come together to create a true community where everyone succeeds."
Connection to Youth Vision
(New Orleans Youth Master Plan, 2020)
Artist Statement Continued
“The elder man and woman in the background, as a result of watching this girl, also start to blow bubbles. The girl opens a new way of thinking, that as a result grows the beauty around. As people grow older, they often become set in their ways, unable or unwilling to take on new perspectives. As we grow older, we start to lose our “childishness" and reject new ideas and creativity that are essential to maintaining the openness that we benefit from. Children are flexible in their knowledge, open to what the world has to offer. They have so many questions for the world and ideas about how to problem-solve that are not confined by a closed mindset. The Youth Vision is about including our children in our communities as they have so much to offer. By observing, watching, and taking our youth seriously, anyone can learn how to blow bubbles. By realizing the youths' great potential, New Orleans can become a city for everyone.”
About The Artist
Sophie is a New Orleans-based artist currently studying at Benjamin Franklin High School and NOCCA in the visual arts program. She primarily works with acrylic paint, watercolor, and colored pencils. Sophie has always preferred to use art rather than words, employing her beliefs, feelings, and interests to create. Growing up in both New Orleans, Louisiana and Warsaw, Poland Sophie feels connected to completely opposite realms of reality that inspire what she creates. Her greatest inspirations stem from nature, memories, and people. Sophie takes great interest in studying people, specifically their feelings and roles in the world. Thinking about and examining what properties the feeling holds and illustrating these feelings allows her to explore emotions on a whole new level. Capturing what words cannot simply express is of utmost importance for Sophie. While the meaning in some of her pieces may be clear, when every viewer can see something different in each of her art pieces, that is what Sophie finds beautiful.
Instagram: @sophie.drawss
Website: sites.google.com/student.nocca.com/sophiemichalewicz