Artist Statement

Art is passion, expression, and wonder. I feel that art is sentimental. As an artist, Art is passion, expression, and experience. Each of my works are a challenge to use my creative process to tell a story, set a scene, express emotion, and convey a message. Behind each work is a hidden narrative of me and my life that lies open to interpretation. I utilize art to capture meaningful moments, intriguing subconscious thoughts, struggles, and aspirations in my life. I currently have no medium of choice, but I prefer to have a diversity of experimenting with both traditional and digital mediums. My greatest motivation for art comes from the experience of creation, self expression, and computer and game technology. My main inspirations for my art are life experiences, and storytelling. Exploration through experimentation of both digital and traditional mediums is a practice of storytelling through a physical or virtual immersion. The challenge is how both can be utilized to create an immersive experience. The beginning of my journey for immersiveness began during a project to 3D model a virtual environment and the process started when I asked myself “If I were a world, what would I look like?” This led me to a fascination to bring the places I have explored in my head into a virtual space for others to peek into as if looking in. Each project reflects elements of myself and explores the soul through surrealistic forms. Each of my works are conceptual and personal and both convey an emotion that is represented through the scene or narrative of the work.

Artist Biography

Deanna Gutierrez is both a studio artist and digital media artist. She was born in 1998 and raised in Fresno. Growing up, Deanna always had her head in the clouds daydreaming, this became frustrating for her academically as she had to be tutored after school to keep up with her class due to lack of focus. She was later diagnosed with a form of ADHD and prescribed medication, however, she began doodling her thoughts as a means of filtering the ideas that once overloaded her mind. This marked the beginning of her passion for art, but despite this, she took little to no art classes throughout elementary and high school, leaving her to doodle in her free time. It was not until her senior year of high school she realized that she wanted to pursue art with an emphasis on game design. Video games have played a major role in the influence of her passion for storytelling, environmental design, and meaningful character development. She committed herself to the arts at Clovis Community College, graduating with an AA in Studio Arts. With this degree, she transferred to San Jose State University, where she is currently pursuing a BFA in Digital Media Design. Deanna Gutierrez first familiarized herself with traditional media until she decided to continue her education and experience in San Jose State’s Digital Media Art program to reach her career goal in game design.