Through the Glass Screen
by Lauren Awaya
Through the Glass Screen
by Lauren Awaya
OASIS Creative Arts Fellowship
Art Showcase
Meet our 8 2021 CAF fellows and learn more about the inspiration behind their projects
Connection & Disconnection:
The Age of Quarantine
Visual Arts
Viviana Valladares
My name is Viviana Balladares and my artist name is Amateur Mo. I was born and raised in National City, California, and have been doing art since elementary school, but started taking it more seriously in my last year of high school. The main medium I had been using was graphite pencil, however, quarantine has caused me to dive deeper into art and try mediums like color pencil, acrylic paint, and watercolor. I would like to continue to grow my skills as an artist and find a future career that incorporates my love for art in any way.
My name is Lidia Fernanda Vazquez, I am currently a student in Revelle College and majoring in Bioengineering: Biotechnology. I have grown up in San Diego/ Tijuana so I incorporate a lot of my cultural roots in my art. I began painting 8 feet by 8 feet chalk pieces in the course of 28 hours in large Chalk Art festivals when I was 9 years old. Ever since then I have contributed to many community events in San Diego and Tijuana Baja California Mexico. As a resident of Chula Vista, I created a painting for Chula vista’s TEDx, a community mural in the Chula Vista Harbor fest, and having my art showcased in Chula Vista’s cultural arts master plan. I believe in the power of art to advocate for social justice.
Lidia Vazquez
Marau Garcia
I was born and raised in San Diego, California (2000), currently a student at UCSD majoring in General Biology and minoring in Psychology. My enthusiasm for art transpired ever since I was a kid. Drawing has then become an outlet for how I express my emotions and a way to manage my stress. Most of my artworks consist of paintings, mixed media, sculptures, sketch works and revolve around the genre of Abstract Expressionism, as it is a way to manifest my emotions and let others interpret the emotions that emerge from my paintings.
Hi! My name is Lauren Awaya (she/her/hers) and I'm from Los Angeles, CA. I've been writing letters since childhood in the form of thank you cards, pen pals, or just heartfelt reminders of my love for my family. On the covers of the envelopes, I loved drawing whatever I thought the recipient would love most and I would pour my thoughts and emotions into the writing itself. It wasn't until undergrad that I realized how much I loved calligraphy and anything to do with letters (wax sealing, stationary, and even washi tape if it fits the vibe). Most recently, I’ve loved trying out new artistic endeavors such as glass painting, which is how my project idea came to life!
Lauren
Awaya
Creative Writing
SABRINA
chEN
I'm a 4th year Literature/Writing major currently residing in the Bay Area. My
writing specialty is in literary fiction; as a 2nd year, I was the winner of the 2019 Saier Memorial Award in Fiction. While I've written here and there for school assignments, this was the first year I've ever tried writing multiple fiction pieces for my Honors Thesis and for the Creative Arts Fellowship. In developing my style, writers that I looks up to are Haruki Murakami, Lily Hoang, and Carmen Maria Machado. Recently, I've been interested in genre fiction--particularly, I’d love to try writing something like the Percy Jackson series or The Hunger Games. In the future, I hope to pursue a career in medicine and is particularly intrigued by palliative care, psychiatry, and behavioral research.
I was born and raised in Mumbai, India and am currently a third year at UCSD, majoring in Cell and Molecular Biology and minoring in Theatre. I express myself exclusively through writing, dabbling in everything from drabbles to poetry to one-act plays. However, I consider longform narrative fiction my calling and have been honing my craft since 2012. I'm very partial to the high fantasy and magical realism genres, but I also enjoys producing the occasional contemporary young adult piece in a haze of inspiration. One day, I hope to publish a novel of my own. When I'm not wandering around museums and libraries or scribbling away in my world-building diary, I write for Other People, UCSD’s first literary magazine.
Sanjana Dhamankar
Multimedia
Omar
flores
I began my close relationship with music as a band kid throughout middle and high school. It was in these years I learned to embrace the rigid tempos of the marching snare alongside the chaotic off time melodies of jazz compositions. It was not until my early college days that I began to put my years of practice as a multi-instrumentalist into the role of composition. As an artist who now works as a singer, songwriter, and producer, I look to take influences from my past experiences in order to share my stories and make sense of my own thoughts. My typical genres are vast as I often jump between indie, ambient, rap, and alternative. I currently go by omr and am based in San Diego but originally from Los Angeles.
I grew up in San Diego, California, where my interest in drawing originated from my fascination with cartoons and comic books. Growing up with a mental illness, a majority of my art has become a symbolic manifestation of what I experience in my personal life. The surrealistic nature of my pieces aims to transport my audience into their own dreamscapes, resonating with the emotions fused in each composition. I mainly create drawings but also write poetry. My works have been featured in the Escondido Center of the Arts Endangered exhibit, as well as earning titles such as Artist of the Year for Drawing and Painting at Mission Hills High School and the High School Award for Poetry in Palomar College’s Bravura issue of 2020.
