Andre – Einstein Medical School, Bronx, New York.
With my mask, I tried to express two key parts of my life, which are basically being raised in New York City (NYC) and having my cultural background from an island named Grenada in the Caribbean. Throughout much of my life I’ve enjoyed being able to blend the foods and music of my culture with more local experiences of NY, which is already quite diverse.
Grey is one of my favorite colors, and here it represents my relatively neutral outlook based on the people I’ve met and range of experiences collected. The roads colored in grey and gold represent optimism in the path I travel. The black color reminds me of the nights that I’ve spent when visiting Grenada, and it’s actually painted in a similar shape to the island.
I removed one eye and placed a water symbol on the other. Water is one of my favorite elements, and a great hobby of mine is to watch a lot of animations from the Japanese culture, so I included that here to remind me of that interest.
On the mouth, you’ll see again a blend of the two sides and it’s meant to represent yin and yang, from a religion call Taoism. I do not practice Taoism myself, but it’s a reminder to me and something that I think is important to always understand that there are two sides to things and different perspectives that you need to take into consideration, especially in the world we live in, there is always a blend of good and bad. I like to remain very objective on the things I speak on and the things I learn as well.
There are also a couple of the things at the base that ground me like sports, which I’ve always enjoyed, you can see a basketball here and courts, and water is my favorite element and it’s something I just love to feel, be around, and really appreciate.