Fantastical Versimultitude
A profile on twenty-seven-year-old Forest Hills illustrator Normandie Syken…
On the lookout for local artists in various neighborhoods around Queens, I decided to focus on Normandie Syken. Her illustrations create a community that glows beyond the invisible borders and dichotomies that separate New Yorkers.
Normandie was exposed to childhood books during her youth like everyone else was. Some kids return to the words and grow up to become writers, some think about the content and become intellectuals, yet Normandie returns to the illustrations in them. Who knew this pastel, joyful, and innocent world would be something she revisited as an adult?
Normandie does not “like what's going on in the art world.” She emphasizes that she does not want to “disturb people” and tries “not to draw stuff that [is] inappropriate” or “that’s gonna offend people.” Writing as a 10th grader, most of the art that I have been familiarized with is of wars, works of art that have historical meaning, or art representative of the marginalized ordeal. Recently, my Spanish class was asked “What is art?” Mostly my peers called out the words “subjective,” “opinion,” and “perspective.” One person said art is “anything you want it to be” if it is “creative” and resembles “human expression.” But what are the rules that make art art?
A two-word google search defines art as “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.” Nevertheless, based on my experience the art that conveys ‘emotional power’ is all that has been deemed important enough to view and analyze. But what about the ‘beauty’ aspect of the definition of art?
The only beauty that I have seen lately is Edward Hopper’s Early Sunday Morning and Morning Sun in my art class. He accentuates quiet glimpses of solitude, beauty, and tranquility from within the teeming, cutthroat and diverse city of New York, making the viewer discover oases across a vast desert. Despite the feeling of desolation, I find his work to be enchanting. However, rather violent works of art such as Judith Slaying Holofernes or The Course of Empire: Destruction have been brought up in my various schools. Though isn’t there something momentous about those women casually slaying Holofernes, showcasing female emancipation? What about the intangible idea that human civilization repeats itself over and over at different times in different places throughout Sapien history? Both of these examples completely complicate the concept of beauty.
Normandie categorizes her work into Pop Culture, Mary Poppins, Puss In Boots, Murals, etc., which are composed of watercolor, pen, and ink. The beautiful aspect of Normandie’s work is lucid; she describes her style as “very fun,” “lively,” and “imaginative” as it “has a sense of character and movement,” because she draws from life. Her art is “not capturing the likeness, it's capturing more of the feeling that was there.” The nostalgic, animated, and community-oriented feels of her artwork create a utopian world to juxtapose that in which we live in. Her use of bright colors and brush strokes impacts her audience emotionally, lets them find the beautiful moments in New York City, and of course, creates the most action-packed scenes in her alternate universe. In the end, she “want[s] to make people enjoy” her work. As much as her work seems to evade the pessimistic side of life, she can be considered selective instead. Only capturing the most optimistic moments of society argues that humans can be positive and there is good in the world even when you don’t realize it. At first, her work feels like a deflection of coming of age, but then when you least expect it, it becomes genuine snapshots of human existence.
Because of Normandie’s plentiful work of depicting Forest Hills, (The Forest Hills Stadium, The West Side Tennis club during games, concerts, and small moments, and even her scattered murals in the neighborhood’s shops), I originally reached out to Normandie Skyen as a Forest Hills artist. However, Normandie ventures way beyond Forest Hills. To Normandie, the community doesn’t mean a district or houses of the same architecture. To Normandie, the community is the combination of individual people and the little snippets of positivity and humanity that bind it together. By capturing these specific moments and emotions she creates community within her own art.