Mia Bruce

Year of birth: 2003
Where do you live: Eastvale, CA
Describe your art in three words: riveting, vulnerable, raw
Your discipline: Multi-media abstract artist
Website | Instagram

Can you share a memory or experience that solidified your connection to art at a young age?

I truly identified the importance of art when I was 9 years old. That’s when I had my first art class. Before the class, art was just doodles, scribbles, zigzags, and swirls of crayons. But that class taught me empowerment within art. That mysterious source of strength for me was the usage of color. Color became real to me. Minimizing and maximalizing the brilliance, the hues, and the saturation to entice the viewer into your subject became extremely exciting. I can provoke, invoke, disgust, and excite with color. One color has the power to vitalize or depress the subject. One color has the strength to challenge, empower, strengthen, or defeat the viewer. One color can turn skies bright and luminous or dreary and dark. I began to see the world in color because of artwork. Give meaning and expanded connotations to simple, ordinary things in my life. Though there’s little I can recollect from that small classroom, the one thing I can reminisce about is that it was the breeding ground for my mind in the arts.

How did art become a therapeutic outlet for you, and how do you encourage others to use it in the same way?

Nothing consoled me the way art consoled me. Words only express and define so much. Nothing can explain the abstraction that lies within the inner man. There are pacifiers to keep you from crying aloud your woes, but even with a pacifier, you are still crying. Art is as clear as it is vague. Art was a source of relatability in my youth as it was able to depict unspeakable emotions, concerns, thoughts, and prayers. As much as I would love to bottle everything up, I need a vent. Everyone needs a vent. Art became that vent for me. Choosing colors, subjects, style, and medium in an art piece gives you full rein on its outcome. This power continually strengthens how I make decisions. I encourage creative mediums for everyone because there’s freedom within them. There are no rules or regulations, but rather, they allow you to be your true self. To embrace your true self. To find your true self. Without artwork, I would not be who I am today. I encourage anyone who’s reading this to take to their passions as therapeutic outlets. Those passions are an innate part of you and ought to be embraced and recognized as a part of yourself. In that embrace, you find your identity and purpose.

Mia Bruce, Thoughtless Hoarding, 2024

Your work often leans towards abstractionism and expression. What drew you to these styles rather than traditional realism?

Innately scattered and by default chaotic, I always identified in the artwork that was akin to the soul. The soul is, in itself, undefined, unpictured, and unfiltered. Abstractionism and expressionism are the most real portraiture styles because they capture the inner man. The traditional styles, though beautiful, are unattainable for humans to identify with because it forces you to clean yourself up and chisel away at the rough edges. Abstract works embrace the rough edges and proudly showcase them to the world.

Figures, colors, and emotions seem to be central to your work. How do you decide on your color palette and the figures you incorporate into each piece?

I curate my color palettes on the mood behind the piece.  I hardly plan pieces; I tend to jump straight to the canvas if I need to get an outburst of emotion or energy out.  In deep contemplation, the canvas becomes my brain.  Using subjects and colors to pick apart matters weighing heavy on my mind.  The figures are extensions of myself, choosing how and where to place them depends on the moment.  The artwork is a captured image of my heart, soul, and mind in that moment.  I intend to be raw and vulnerable in each piece, to be aware of my role in my decisions and the consequences that may occur.  Figures and colors are motifs of decision in my work.  Reminding me to have the right intentions in my actions.

You mention decoding the hieroglyphics of your mind through art. How do you translate your inner emotions and thoughts into a visual medium?

The mind is an unfixed medium. The mind shifts with the wind of the moment. The mind wavers in every movement made. The mind is an endless subject to depict because it’s endless in length and width. It’s always changing, always growing, and always moving. I ought to remove all expectations to capture the emotions in an image. For example, if I am angry and destructive mentally but have an expectation that I will create a cohesive palette, I’m already combatting the conflicting emotional state I’m in. I can only translate my inner mechanisms by being in tune with who I am in that moment of creation. Otherwise, I will be creating a false reality that is not personifiable with the viewer and myself. I take to the canvas to create a reality that resonates with the world my mind is in at that moment.

Mia Bruce, To Crouch, 2024

Your art captures raw glimpses of the soul. How do you balance emotional vulnerability with the technical aspects of creating your pieces?

Technicality is the least of my concerns when creating a piece. I use my figures unharmonious with proportional, real anatomy to demonstrate the “out of body” nature art has. I aim for the throat with emotion over precision. I seek relatability in my artwork based on man’s imperfections, especially my imperfections. I curate my imagery on myself in the moment. One piece titled, “In Death, There is Life” uses imagery of overly-muscular humans at odds with another. Paired with animals such as horses, a snake, and a dove. I chose the humans to have emphasized muscles because muscle, to me, is a symbol of pride. “I flex my strength to overwhelm yours.” In that, I’m revealing to the viewer my troubles with pride. The horse represents the freedom that in dying to myself, there is life in living for a deity worthier than I. The snake is the representation that I am prone to the temptations of this world, especially the temptation of carrying myself to be this grand person of unmatched strength. The dove is a symbol of grace. The grace bestowed to me is undeserved but given that I may have life instead of death. The symbols are an example of my thinking process in an art piece. I choose symbols and colors that correlate with one another to create an image true to the moment.

You speak of divine intervention in your artist statement. How has spirituality or belief shaped your artistic journey?

Being human, we are prone to dealing with the insecurities of our skin. In my teenage years, I found myself to be in constant anguish over image, morality, mortality, and identity. Though I was raised in a healthy home, raised in the Christian faith, I never came to that personal revelation that the faith I was raised with was truly my own. Battling with this internal war of my beliefs versus the beliefs I was raised with, the question of my identity in this world was ever-imposing. I found myself in a deeply depressed state and fed into that depression enough to become suicidal. Harboring darkness kept me closing myself off from my community, but art became that community. In artwork, I was able to make sense out of the insensible. In the artwork, I was able to clarify the rough, jagged edges of my thoughts. It was in artwork that I found the beauty of creation. In creation, there must be a creator. I recognized that I was created in the image of God. Created for my own individual purpose in life for a collective reason, and that reason is to glorify the God who gave us life. Once I believed in the life of Jesus Christ, the gift He provides of eternal life and a purpose on this earth, I was brought out of the caverns of depression. From the state of constantly wishing for death, I found that in Christ alone is this sweet surrender of image, morality, mortality, and identity. As humans, depression is a natural default in hard times and difficulties. In those seasons that make me unstable, I turn to the canvas to arrange my thoughts and methodically clean the house of my mind. In creating, I’m reminded of the ultimate creator who purposed life for each of us.

Mia Bruce, War!, 2024