By MALLORY PARUSZEWSKI
Senior Reporter
Elayna Warrington was always an outdoors kind of kid, picking up everything she could get her hands on in nature.
This is where the nature based aspects of her art comes from, a deep love of the natural world.
The artwork “The Fox and the Raven” by Elayna Warrington, sophomore majoring in biology and minoring in visual arts, won 1st place and Best of Show in the 21st annual Art Society Art Show at Northwestern Oklahoma State University.
“Emotion plays a big part in what inspires my work, as art is my own form of stress relief.”
She said that art is a good way to decompress and to get out all of the mixed feelings.
She uses that and puts it on a piece of paper and focuses on making it all into something pretty.
Warrington gets her ideas from emotion and shaping it around the subject she wants to work with.
One of her recent pieces she mentioned “Life in Death” came from a personal experience in high school.
The skull, moth, vines and flowers show healing through nature’s own life cycle.
“I wanted to make something with a skull, but I also wanted to cover it with something to contradict what that skull represented,” said Warrington.
Her winning piece “The Fox and the Raven” is another reflection of her loving nature and being able to connect with it.
It gives her the ideas to come up with unique art pieces.
With a minor in visual arts, her plan isn’t clear with what she wants to do with it, as it’s always been a hobby for her.
“I’ve always had a distant dream of working in the industry as a concept artist, but I have also looked into working as a tattoo artist recently.”
Warrington decided to study art because she was self taught, learning skills such as anatomy, color and composition on her own, until highschool.
A course in fundamentals allowed her to better understand aspects of art work that she never really thought about, for example like the color theory.
“I greatly improved in highschool thanks to my art teacher and his critiques, but studying art in college is a way to further improve my craft,” said Warrington.
“The Fox and the Raven” really shows Warrington’s signature attention to detail and her methodical almost compulsive repetitious mark making style that I have come to recognize as a signature of her artwork,” said Thomas Cornell, Assistant Professor of Visual Arts.
Warringtons art piece will be featured in the winners show downtown at the Runnymeade on April 5 from 6 p.m.-8p.m during the First Friday Artwalk event.
All other artwork that placed at the Northwestern art show will also be on display including peoples choice winner Emma Curry.
