Some would argue that there is a point to art. Some would say simply sometimes it’s just looks nice. However, many would agree it is unimportant as long as it can evoke something deeper within yourself.

“I was always drawing as a kid and I used to loved to color, but as far as painting, seriously, it started my senior year. It was the first time I had an art class and I fell in love with it.” Says Kimberely Batson majoring in Art

Beginning to learn from art classes, teachers begin to show students to work in different mediums and express themselves in ways they weren’t able to before.

Growing up she always wanted to be a marine biologist because she would always go to the aquarium and envision becoming a trainer for animals like seals or even Shamu, the great killer whale.

Once she made it to senior year in high school, her art teacher exposed her to “Un Chien Andalour,” which was a video about an artist named Salvador Dali who really intrigued her and got her to look him up and opened up her mind to a surrealistic style.

There are many different types of painters, dancers, singers and so on. The question is what makes one stand out. For their were a few different things.

“I’ve always had a mentality to do art for myself and not necessarily for anyone else and not comparing to others.”

Many of aspirations have had similar demeanor about individuality and creating their own current.

“I get inspiration from the surrealist mentality, but that is more so unique in the sense that they’re focusing on their dreams and representing it as they’re seeing it.”

It’s not so much that she enjoys painting to be better than others but to express something new every time and when it comes down to it painting becomes therapeutic for her.

She described that her paintings may be, “moody and show some sort of emotion and the emotions are things I have harbored.”

Later in life after overturning the idea of wrestling with Shamu she now decided on majoring in fine arts. Batson wants to pursue a job in art therapy.

After abiding in Cerritos for a long while the only thing she needs left is to pass her math class and hopes to graduate to a Cal State university. She is possibly considering Cal State Long Beach because they’re known for their fine arts department.

She’s interested in seeing Cal Arts, “but they’re a pretty penny” she said.

Hagop Najarian, professor of the painting class at Cerritos College and Kimberely’s teacher says, “I first met Kimberely in my painting class a few years ago, she didn’t have much painting experience, but she has blossomed. Professionally speaking all painting comes from drawing and she didn’t have that much painting done yet, but in her defense, she plowed through it and always did interesting things.”

“She had some kind of raw energy, what sometimes makes an interesting painting which you can say for great artists like Van Gogh or Saison that struggled with the realistic part, but had more of a passionate voice and Kimberely always had that.”