Amber Carrillo

Growing up in a small New Mexican town, unwanted attention can come from people who don’t have your best interest at heart. I was often made fun of for short stature and dark skin tone. I did not understand that my school bullies were insecure of their own body image until I befriended them as adults and learned that they were caught in a cycle of being abused to becoming abusers. In an effort to stop this cycle, I chose to embolden people through portraits and music.

My art focuses on bringing the viewer into an experience that places them into other people’s lives. I desire to showcase what people are insecure about in a positive manner. For some of my male friends, highlighting a beard or eyebrows in headshots may be abrasive, but when concentrating on the features in a good light, they can prove to be powerful to a person’s aura. Music and photography are two art forms that can command an audience within the first 5 seconds of engaging.  With humanity heavily relying on the sense of sight, using photography as the medium to translate the accuracy of a person’s image is required, while music influences the mood of the listener to place them in a specific atmosphere. My goal is to make portraits that provide a clear image of the subject while also expressing the mood of the subject through music. Anybody who experiences my art will be put in a “stranger’s shoes”, because everybody’s life is a piece of art that can be told.