1) Who are you and what do you do?
Hello there, my name is Syazana. As of this moment, I’m a college student taking ‘Art & Design’ as one of her core subjects. Not only do I do art academically, I also do it as a side hobby, creating my own projects just for the fun of it. Academically, I make realistic still-life paintings and on the rare occasion, human portraits. As a hobby, I usually create fanarts of game characters, movie characters, youtubers and sometimes art of my own original characters.
2) Why do you do what you do?
As a pre-teen I used to create art for fun, to burn away the endless energy I had as a kid and a way to pass the time during school breaks. As I got older, without truly realizing it back then, I wanted to continue creating art. Be it in the form of a job, or as my own side project, I just knew I didn’t want to give it up. Not now and hopefully not anytime soon.
3) What is your strongest memory of your childhood?
Back in the late months of 2015, one of my cousins came over to stay at my family’s house. For a day, if I recall correctly. During his stay, he and my younger brother spent quite a few hours playing on our playstation 3. It only had two controllers available at the time. Being left to my own devices, I grew bored very quickly. Scrolling through youtube as a form of entertainment, I found a video featuring a drawing tutorial on how to draw a simple chibi character. As a child who enjoyed watching cartoons and funny anime shows, it piqued my interest. So I started following the tutorial. I finished a few minutes before my cousin was done playing with my younger brother and later showed him the drawing I made. I don’t recall how the drawing looks, but I do remember what was said about the drawing. He complimented it and said it looked nice, or something along those lines. It’s a memory I still remember to this day.
4) How has that memory inspired or influenced the way you create?
Children are easily influenced by words, as well as physical and social experiences. As a child, the comment he made drove me to follow more art tutorials. And eventually steered me on the path to making my own art without even realizing it 5 years later. I suppose this was one of the first stepping stones on my art journey. Like how art has brought me happiness, I like to create art for other people to bring them happiness as well.
5) What is your dream? And a dream project you have always wanted to work on?
As of recently, I dream of being an architect, or something like that. To me, architecture is an amalgamation of art, science, engineering and design. All these topics interest me greatly and I hope to be able pursue this career in the future.
On the other hand, a dream project I’ve always wanted to work on would be to produce and illustrate a comic of my own. It has nothing to do with my dream of being an architect. With so many ideas and imaginary characters swirling in my head, I’ve always dreamed of being able to illustrate them on paper.
6) Do other interests influence your art?
Certainly, without a doubt! Movies, comics, cartoon shows and video games have always been a big influence on not only my art style but how I portray my art as well. I’ve recently taken a curious interest and new perspective on the things around me. Simple things like the tree on my front yard or major events like Covid-19 have also inspired me to make more art regarding real life objects and events.
7) Brunei’s creative industry in 10 years will be…
Bright and full of hope, is what I envision as a future possibility. Many initiatives, both by the countries’ governments and private sectors have been launched in recent years to develop the creative industry in Brunei. In addition, the number of people in the younger population which have shown an interest in arts have gradually increased over the years. Despite the future being unpredictable, with active progress, I’m positive Brunei’s creative industry will thrive.