Name
Olivia

Brain Tumor Type
Other

Date of Diagnosis
N/A (Sibling, my brother was diagnosed when I was three)

Participant Group
Sibling

Category
Drawing/Painting/Printmaking/Chalk Art

Artist Statement (include type of art, techniques & materials used, what it means to you)
This painting "Flowers for You" is an acrylic done on a 18*24 canvas. It’s is a continuation in the series l've done the past two years. Each year, a hand holding something, symbolical to a time period or occurrence in my life, as a sibling of someone with a brain tumor. This painting I strayed away from that circumstance, focusing on my separate identity. As a senior in high school about to leave for college, I’ve had many struggles and triumphs that build up my identity most which connect back to my brother. But they are my separate experiences. This painting represents those experiences for me. My college acceptances and accomplishments with my grades, my love and heartbreak, my anxiety and my progress in my mental health, and most of all my graduation. The flowers represent my mourning and my celebration, my pain and my joy, my identity. Held out by me as something beautiful and admirable.

Artist Bio: Tell Us Your Story
My brother was diagnosed with a Craniopharyngioma when I was three years old. I spent all of my life living with his diagnosis as the normal way of life. He is alive and well today, going to a community college. I am extremely grateful for my brother, he is sweet, and caring, and through thick and thin has been the person he always is. I had my struggles as a sibling, and I have explored those through phycology and expressed them through art. As I go off to college I will keep those experiences with me, but also remember the other the facets of my identity. I am an artist, a valedictorian, a Greene school student, an environmentalist, a curious learner, and a friend.