Tim Rand (b 1987, United States)

I didn't always want to be an artist. I wanted to be a park ranger or a stamp collector, or a world traveller. One day, I was sitting in a study hall and drawing a nine-panelled portrait in ball point pen. The balding old substitute teacher waltzed over and told me to work on math problems. "Art is worthless," he said. That small phrase stuck with me, and it was that very day that I decided to prove him wrong and create. I have not looked back since.

​

Painting is many things. It is meditation, and it is problem solving. It is peace, and it is anger. It is not being afraid, and it is showing the world what you fear most. It is darkness and light, it is a conundrum. But if there is one singular word to describe what art means to me, that word is truth.