Brielle Scott

Growing up an African American transfemme who’s come to love starry, cutesy, and flashy things, I live a very complicated existence. Through the many heartening and traumatic experiences, you are forced to learn a lot of things, both good and bad. For example, how some people will want to see you suffer for their own enjoyment, or when one’s love for you may be so great that it hurts you, but on the flipside, you find people who can lift you up when you need it most, and if people like me are lucky, we get to see those who love too much channel their energy with yours in a way that can build both of us up together. With these kinds of experiences, I’ve been forced to wonder about the complications and existence of love, freedom, and expression, and through these experiences and self-reflections I’ve emerged as a more caring and loving person. My inspirations are found in fantasy tropes. The biggest examples of this are franchises such as the Sonic the Hedgehog series (mainly Yuji Naka Naoto and Ian Flynn) and Magical Quartet’s Madoka Magica challenge the idea of free will. Meanwhile, Rebecca Sugar’s Steven Universe and HAL Laboratory’s Kirby embrace what the power of love and expression can do in freeing people from the dark reality of fate and despair. My work follows in this lineage of fantasy tropes of freedom and salvation. Using characters and worlds to tell their stories, reality and fantasy collide in my work, inviting viewers to find the possibilities of hope through sympathy and kindness and looking deep within oneself to find and strive to become their best selves.