As a teenager, I enjoyed reading Japanese schoolgirl magazines. On Valentine’s Day, these magazines showed girls giving their crushes cute confections that felt really special. They professed their feelings, and I was envious because high school life was so boring in comparison to these fantasies. I wanted to be like the girls in the magazines. The girl in this piece represents all the love, gifts, and feelings that Valentine’s Day represented for me, that I had to keep contained inside.

With this piece, I wanted to capture the sweetness of youth: a yearning to give and confess feelings of love and care for one another.