My mother once said, “Art is the emotional history of the human existence.” Art allows us to be entrenched within the hearts of the time - from the flourishing era of the Edo period of Japan to the atrocities such as Franco’s bombing of Guernica as depicted through Picasso’s visceral accounting of the event. Art demonstrates the range within humanity as well as the volatility of our power.

Art is the most intimate expression of the soul — a language beyond words that speaks directly to the heart. Expression is the place where emotion meets imagination, where chaos finds rhythm and silence reveals a voice. Whether through paint, sound, movement, or written word, art offers a space to process the world and reflect pieces of ourselves we didn’t know were waiting to be seen. Artistic expression captures fleeting moments of truth, wrapping them in beauty or pain, vulnerability or triumph, and offers them to others as a shared human experience.

In art, both sanctuary and rebellion are found. The world of expression is a mirror that reveals who I am and a window into who I might become. Creating or experiencing art is grounding in the present while making connections to countless others across time and space. It allows for honesty in a world that often rewards masks. Art is not just something we do or admire — it’s how we take a breathe of life, how we understand, and how we hope. Art, in all its forms, is a way of saying, I was here. I felt this.