Growing Up Doesn't Mean Growing Out of Wonder

🌏 A Thought I've Been Sitting With

Lately I've been thinking a lot about how I would describe my artistic style and who my work is really for.

The only gallery show I've ever done was in Venice Beach on Abbott Kinney. While helping install the exhibition, the guy helping me curate suggested hanging many of my paintings three to five feet off the ground so they would sit at a child's eye level. I thought it was a fun idea, but it also made me realize something. My art isn't actually made for children.

It definitely embraces childlike wonder, but that's different from being childish. My paintings are colorful, nostalgic, and joyful because they've become my way of finding light, even during life's heavier moments. Through creatures, playful details, and tiny worlds, I hope to remind people what it feels like to slow down, imagine, and appreciate the little bits of magic that still exist around us. I've never believed that art has to represent trauma or darkness to have meaning. Sometimes choosing to see the world through a softer, more hopeful lens is meaningful enough.

🍓 Looking East Instead of West

One of the comments I hear most often is, "Your work would be perfect for a children's book." I completely agree, but I also think it's made for adults.

Living in Shanghai and traveling throughout East Asia completely changed the way I think about whimsy. In much of the West, growing up often comes with an expectation that your home, your style, and even your interests become more neutral and minimal. In many parts of Asia, I experienced the opposite. People don't leave behind the things that brought them joy as children. They continue to surround

themselves with them.

One of my favorite memories was waiting outside Kiddy Land in Japan before it opened. The line was almost entirely adults. The same goes for stores like Miniso, where it's always adults filling their baskets with cute things. While trends certainly exist, cuteness isn't treated like one. It's simply part of everyday life.

When I shared my artwork with people while living in Shanghai and traveling across Asia, it was consistently adults, often my age and older, who connected with it the most.

🌼 The People I Paint For

My work can be enjoyed by anyone, but I think my target audience has always been adults. Adults who have forgotten how to play. Adults who spend too much time worrying. Adults who could use a little more color, whimsy, and imagination in their everyday lives.

If one of my paintings can make someone smile as they walk by it, remind them of childhood, or encourage them to see the world with a little more curiosity, then I think it's doing exactly what it was meant to do.

More on my newest paintings and the little worlds I'm creating in my next newsletter :)

With love and color,

Rosalie