As a 20-year-old girl who is still developing as an artist and as a human, Grace Rios finds inspiration through her life and uses art to portray her culture and experiences.
“I haven’t developed a personality yet within my art, but I pay attention to details a lot and I like doing artwork that is very much into detail—I like colors,” Rios said. “Even when I develop the person I want to be in art, the other stuff will fall along with that. I am still developing.”
Originally from Peru, Rios moved to the United States when she was eight with her mom on a marriage visa. She reminisced about her first snow day and how she had no winter clothes.
“I wore like five layers of jeans and played in the snow the whole day,” Rios said.
Within her Hispanic culture and background, she finds that patterns and colors influence her art the most.
“I really like painting plants and animals, and sometimes people. I like paint more than anything, like watercolor and acrylics,” Rios said.
After realizing she had over 1,000 colored pencils, Rios decided to collect them, along with coloring books and slowly found a love for art.
“I would never actually color in them, I would use them to draw,” Rios said.
Growing up, Rios said her house was similar to an exhibition hall. She said her mom is very supportive of her art and always displays her artwork on the walls in her house. Recently, a business in the Oregon District offered to buy her work, but she is too connected to sell her art.
“I’ve been so attached to my artwork,” Rios said. “It’s my originals and I just can’t let it go.”
Rios attended a career tech trade school in high school focusing on graphic arts for two years. She said it was a great experience because the environment was supportive and respectful of everyone’s talent.
“School helped me a lot because they critiqued me,” Rios said.
However, because of the competitiveness, Rio considers art more as a hobby, rather than a potential career. She is majoring in Social Work at Sinclair and hopes to continue her major at Wright State University when she graduates, along with getting her Master’s. Rios said her goal is to help people and might add art into the mix.
“I kind of want to combine psych and social work. I used to think of using my art with social work, but I feel like I would have to move someplace that would pay money for art for healing,” Rios said.
Although Rios has no desire to major in art, she hopes to be a freelance artist, along with social work.
“Being under pressure to do art is not something that I want—I just want to be able to do it when I want and put my own timelines on things,” Rios said.
Colored pencils and graphite are some of the mediums Rios likes to work with because it provides texture, but scratchboard is one of her favorites that she used to create a drawing of jazz player, Miles Davis.
“[Scratchboard] is clay and ink, and you scratch it off and use different tools to give different textures,” Rios said. “There’s one that’s like a metal sponge that I use for different texture to make the art look more realistic.”
Rios is constantly inspired by life and aspires to be Frida Kahlo, a Mexican painter known for her self-portraits.
“She was very ahead of her time, not just drawing wise, but as a woman,” Rios said.
Citizenship has been an important as aspect in her life, and two years ago Rios went back to Peru for two weeks as part of the process to obtain her American citizenship. Although she was inspired by her journey back to Peru, Rios realized how blessed she is to consider the United States her forever home.
“I could never live there because it’s a very undeveloped country and I have so many more opportunities here than I would there,” Rios said. “America is my home.”
Gabrielle Sharp
Grace Rios