Marie Xieng selected as January’s Artist Spotlight

Marie Xieng, 21, has been selected for January’s Artist Spotlight, nominated by the fine arts department for her stellar art pieces.

            Born in Shanghai, China, Xieng has been attending Green River for a little over two-and-a-half years and has plans of transferring. She studied in Germany in 2014 before moving to Washington. The artist has taken almost every art class offered at the college ranging from Art 180 to Oil Painting. Currently, she’s taking drawing, Art 110. While she’s having fun with these classes, she’s also very serious about her future. She considered being an architect major in 2016, but she decided to switch into becoming a game designer as her major.

            She took up the pencil and paper at the young age of five years old. As she grew older, her interest in the arts grew as well, and soon after, her skills flourished. Buildings, cities, towns and landscapes were what she started with as she practiced her skills diligently. It wasn’t long before her discovery of video games and along with it the array of art styles was provided. Although she went for architecture first, video games and anime stole the show. Some anime shows she likes to watch include Naruto and Code Geass, but really she likes to watch most anime.

            By taking her art skills into the video game world, Xieng became more pleased with her hobby and wanted to take it to the next level. “I play a lot of video games, that’s one of the places where I get my inspiration from,” she said. Ringing in aspects of video games ranging from Final Fantasy (which she described as her favorite) to World of Warcraft, every detail in her pieces is accounted for.

When she talked about the reason why she wanted to tackle art she said, “…the visual is definitely the one sense with the most impacts on human minds, and I have experienced this since I was a little girl.”

            Video games weren’t her only inspiration. Her father is her biggest supporter. Being an architect himself, he was also the reason why she wanted to get into architecture. After 2016, Xieng had changed her mind, even if the area of study tended to her artistic interests. When she made the switch, there was no doubt her father stood behind her. Now she is tackling her soon-to-be major with confidence. She even surrounds herself with friends who share her interests which is always a confidence booster.

            To voice her confidence, she has shared her work online and any other public venue wherever she could and receives positive reviews. Like every artist in any form, she too experiences blocks. Blocks are always hard to overcome as they are hard-hitting and sometimes demoralizing. Xieng undoubtedly encounters this demoralization, but has many ways of overcoming them. For instance, she’ll leave her art alone for however long it takes when she is lacking any drive. Although, she doesn’t like to leave it for more than a week fearing that she will forget any concepts or ideas she had at the time. Drawing every day of the week can get tiring at times and it’s never a bad idea to take a break.

            When asked if she had any advice for aspiring artists she had a few tips to share. First, she advised that an artist must always carry around a sketchbook and a pencil. In her words, when she sees something inspiring she draws quick sketches of any ideas she has at that moment. This is the most important thing any artist can do in her opinion. Constant practice was her other piece of advice. If an artist practices daily, everything will be internalized and eventually the artist becomes better every time. Although she previously had stated that it’s okay to take breaks from time to time, she never stopped drawing. Finally, since she surrounded herself with fellow artist, her last piece of advice would be to take a look at other people’s work and study. Artists constantly provide support for each other and critique each other’s works, so Xieng advises to have some confidence to look beyond one’s own artwork and soak up the concepts others have used. 

            Xieng has set high expectations for herself and her artwork not only now, but for the future. As she continues her trek on the path of visual stimulation, she has no plans of ever stopping her artful expressions.