Mya Bailey is a first-year student majoring in arty history with a chemistry and studio art minor at SUNY New Paltz.
Her journey as an artist began at age 12, when she moved from upstate New York to Georgia and found herself struggling to meet new people. Her mother looked for programs to put her in and settled on a local art school, hoping that Bailey would be able to make friends while also filling up her free time.
Originally, she had no interest in art — it was just something for her to do — but her and her teacher quickly realized that she had potential and was asked to continue in the class.
As Bailey continued, she found herself craving to be in the studio for hours at a time. Her work represents a lot of the pieces of herself that she feels she is too shy to show the public. Bailey has used her artwork to speak out on many internal and external hardships that she has faced as an Afro Latina.
However, more than anything her work makes her happy and because of that, she feels confident in calling herself an artist; finding pure joy within the process, execution and result.
Bailey focuses on using graphite and oil painting. She leans towards realism in her work and feels as though those two mediums aid her the most.
Bailey hopes to pursue a career in art conservation and preservation so that her artistry will be used to restore preserved artworks. She explained that her career path is a large reason why she leans so heavily towards realism in her work. Bailey also plans on revisiting sculpture and design elements in her personal work in the future.
For more on Bailey and her work, visit @mrbaileyart on Instagram.
