So here we are...or better yet here I am! Id say " incase you're new here" but we're all new here, including me! 

So let me introduce myself... Im Reyna Sunshine/KR and this is MELANphoria!

What is MELANphoria? Well aside from being a completely made up word, it is the combination of the words "melancholy" and "euphoria". A state in which you experience both emotions simultaneously. However I would broaden this to include all contradictory emotions. Joy and Sorrow, Hope and Fear, Love and Pain etc. Something that I believe women in particular excel at naturally. For me it is the state that I often find myself in when creating my art and when viewing art that resonates with me. A deep persistent sadness that pushes me to create my characters/portraits, to tell their stories...and the immense euphoria that I feel from releasing their pain and transmuting it into beauty. 

The Inspiration for my art usually starts as a little voice from the darkness inside me...no not a voice more the feeling of a voice. I know that sounds wild but thats the best I can explain it! I am an intuitional artist which is a fancy way of saying I just wing it lol. Seriously though, when i start one of my ladies I don't yet know her. I don't yet know her story. I feel her. I feel what she feels and I work on the canvas to bring her story out of the darkness and tell it in detail. 

I think this is a good spot to address why I paint women. Its simply, because i am women. No thats not a type error, I did not mean woman. I am women, and they are me. My happiness is theirs and their pain is mine. I simply create what I know.

My goal with my art is to create a feeling of "being seen" for the viewer. Often I think we struggle to understand this stir of conflicting emotions within us let alone be able to communicate them to others. My hope is that my art can give a face to these emotions and help us to not only feel them but to accept them as beautiful and be able to share our stories with one another. For that is the true secret to healing, we cannot heal ourselves, we can only heal one another. 

FUN FACT: I have the words " Beautiful Dissonance" tattooed across my lower stomach. YES IT HURT! lol But that tattoo is my way of honoring this within myself, the beautiful conflict that lives within me.

So thats it! Thats my shpeal... stick around for more art, stories, insights, and whatever other little brain babies I give birth to!  Or don't. But you totally should!