If you see someone in the hallway with purple hair, intricately winged eyeliner and swimming in streetwear, it’s cartoonist Bella Young. As a freshman at Niles West, her art exceeds her reputation as she’s built an impressive portfolio with a distinct graffiti cartoon-like style. Due to growing interest in her artwork, Young has branched from art to business, selling her work and accepting commissions through her artist’s Instagram. Whether it’s expressing herself through penned sketches, bleach t-shirt designs, sculpted clay or fun makeup, her creative displays are sure to catch your eye.
Inspired by living beings, Young draws her visions from organic shapes and the opportunity to alter them into expressive caricatures. One of her main motifs is a bunny, seen throughout her art on USPS stickers stuck throughout the local area, a common trait of street art culture.
“There are tons of cool characters you can make with animals. Rabbits are my favorite to draw because their ears, they’re fun, it’s satisfying to draw for me. If somebody tells me to draw a flower, a car, I’m not nearly as interested in that as I am in drawing an animal or character. Anything that isn’t alive, you can’t add expression to that. Something that has emotions, you can change the face, the position, make it look like it’s doing something. Drawing street fashion is always a lot of fun too. You see a lot of baggy stuff and then I get to experiment with body shapes,” Young said.
Stylistically, her art shows an individualistic streak that is hard to define by a singular genre. Influenced by pop culture and cartoons like “Adventure Time,” Young’s art takes on a definitively modern cartoon approach. When asked how to describe her style, words such as ‘electric’, ‘psychedelic’ ‘and floaty’ came up. With an impressively vast articulation between mediums, Young’s commissioners, both students and teachers, acknowledge her flexibility.
“What I find unique about Bella’s art is she’s so dynamic and fluid. She can take any idea and turn it into her unique artistic view. She made artwork related to what we’re learning about in class, she just took that out of nowhere. I’m like, hey, how about you make a portrait of great leaders in every great civilization we study? She’s like, ‘fine’ and put her own Bella twist on it. She painted a t-shirt using a makeup brush, she turns those postcards into art. She can take things that aren’t traditionally used for artwork and turn them into art,” social studies teacher Daniel Kosiba said.
For many artists, their work is a direct extension of their self. Channeling that individuality is a central part of the creative process and it seems Young has no problem standing out and showing originality. Those around her see the work she puts in and her intentions for the future.
“Bella stands out because of who she is. She’s really eclectic and you can see that a lot in her daily style. I see good things in the future, she’s an artist with ambition. She is creating a system with her art that will sustain her. I’ve commissioned her and bought her sticker packs, I hope she builds something that can support her,” senior Laira Biewer said.
Wherever her creativity takes her, Young can count on her intuitive approach to bring her far. The business aspect of selling artwork is an important part of creating personal branding but at its core, making art can be about channeling your emotions, both how you feel and how you want your customers to feel.
“For a lot of artists, [art’s] like an outlet to express the stuff you can’t put into words. It’s all out of my head, based on my mood, I’ll draw different expressions and like styles. Laira told me I should start selling my art because I was talking about the stickers I was making, I thought that the style was cool. I want the [people] who buy my shirts to feel like the coolest people in the room,” Young said.
If you want to be one of the coolest people in the room consider supporting Young’s art. Giving back to local artists is a great way to uplift your community. If you go into an urban area, see how many street artist’s tags you can spot. If one has a bunny, you’ll know who it’s by.
