Nariesha Wilson

Student of St. Dominic High School, Nariesha Wilson is a 17-year-old artist who does painting, photography, crochet, and jewelry making. She embarked on her artistic journey 3 years ago when painting in art class. “I started to develop a truly strong connection with painting,” Nariesha says, “which led me to use it as an outlet. I saw what I could do with art and wanted to dive in deeper”.

“Other than painting, my favourite art is photography. Photography is the first thing I've ever wanted to do. It has a lot of special moments with me. Like when I got my first camera, when I took my first pictures, and when I first learned to edit. I gained a lot of confidence from photography. I started with nature photography, and as I began talking pictures of people, I became more outgoing

As for crochet, I’ve been doing it for a year now. I love it because it distresses me a lot. It's actually really nice to see how one small chain can turn into giant bag. It's very fulfilling.

As for jewelry making, which I also incorporate crochet into, I've been doing that for two years. It mostly started in 2020, during the quarantine. I was pretty poor and I was like, you know what? I'm going to make some very fun and quirky jewelry. I'm not as connected to my jewelry making. For me, it's more of a fun hobby that I like to do from time to time. But I think it's pretty cool.

I developed my art mostly through practice. Art consumes my entire life, so I kind of have to practice it all the time. And the more I practice, the better I become. And I’m happy to have my mother as my biggest supporter, who has always pushed me to be out there with my work - displaying and selling my art.

My one goal is to make the individual feel something while looking at it, whether it's confusion, happiness, or sadness. Whatever it is, I just want them to feel something to think about, something to a related to them in any sort of way. I focus a lot on the human experience, emotions, phobias, and insecurities.

I believe art is important to society because it is everywhere, it is what makes us a society. People need to settle down and appreciate different things, instead of slowly turning into mindless bots with no feelings - numb to being human

I find inspiration through life, through nature, but also from other artists. Seeing what they do makes me want to follow along and try to improve.

On St. Maarten, I am very much inspired by an account called Neha Soneji. She makes really beautiful murals that have been displayed in town before, and Henri Nimrodstein, he makes wonderful images that are of such high quality, I hope to be at that level soon in my paintings and photography.

Being an artist on St. Maarten can be very nice, but at the same time, there’s a weird thing about not getting recognized. We have to fight to survive - get our own income, our own things. There isn’t much for artists on St. Maarten, and I think the Government should be funding and doing more.”