“Growing up, my mother was the biggest inspiration for me. Being an artist herself, she taught me all the different forms of art even from a very young age. My parents always encouraged me to express myself through art and I started drawing when I was a toddler. I used to make up all kinds of stories in my head and those used to get expressed through different mediums of art.
My first breakthrough as a child artist came when I was 5 years old. All the drawings that I did when I was younger were featured as title graphics in the famous Malayalam movie ‘Bangalore Days’. Motivated by the recognition, my parents started an Instagram page for me and I started to post all my artwork there.
I also created my first character ‘Ava’. Ava is a fun and positive girl who exhibited some traits of me. I thoroughly enjoyed conceptualizing her traits and her personality and I started to draw Ava on different holidays exhibiting various styles. This brought about a lot of applause from my art lovers as this was a novel and unique piece of mine.
But the picture was complete when I created another character to accompany Ava. ‘Ramona’ came about to be Ava’s best friend and she had a bold and courageous demeanour. While Ava appeared to be my virtual self, Ramona was conceptualised with traits that I wished to imbibe in myself. Ramona was made an outgoing person who stood up for everything that she believed in. She loved to skateboard and she became the role model that I looked up to.
I kickstarted my NFT collection ‘AvaRamona™’ in the month of August 2021. My main motive through this medium is to inspire children to be more creative and join the space. The scope of NFTs is growing exponentially and this gave me a lot of exposure and got good connections with top-notch professionals. I make fun videos for children where I teach them to draw digitally and also foster a supportive environment for them to explore their artistic skills.
Being a young artist does come with its own pros and cons. While I get to work on interesting art projects, one of the challenges that I faced was time management. Managing school and my art journey were getting hectic but that is the learning curve I am trying to master by exploring productivity tools.
My art journey has made me a better person today. I was an extreme introvert but as recognition started pouring in, I was forced to come out of my shell and become more proactive and communicative. I am getting many opportunities to work as a concept artist where I get to collaborate with 3D animators and fashion designers. I became a speaker and my work has been showcased at some of the major events in the US including NFT NYC, Billboards at Times Square and many other international spaces.
My vision is to share my learning experiences with other kids and help propagate the importance of inculcating art in children to parents. Art has given me an identity and I get to live through exciting adventures through my characters. It is my unwinding space and it is so sacred and precious to me. I want to use this privilege of mine to inspire and support many more artists and help them earn their rightful space in this world.”