Mikaila Stevens

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I’ve always done a lot of fractal designs. They come from a central point, and then they expand. I really like to use a lot of flowers, nature-inspired stuff in a lot of my work. When I want to represent people and places and things, I use a lot of flowers, nature, mountains, rivers. I use the central flower almost like a representation of a singular urban Indigenous Person, like myself in this case, and how that can expand through different communities and how it’s not just necessarily being an urban Indigenous Person, but it’s also what that community means, the outside of the urban community, and how it’s all very interconnected.

There was a day I was just walking, and I like to take a lot of pictures, and I don’t use a lot of my photography in a lot of my art as of yet, but I took one, and I looked at it, and I was like, “That’s actually perfect.” I showed the design to my friend without that picture, and they’re like, “That’s really cool. It’d be cool if it was coming out of cement.” I was like, “Oh my God, you gave me the perfect idea.”

I mixed those two together because I saw the standing on the grass as being the connection to nature or connection to the earth, and then stumbling onto the idea of the urban Indigenous life and moving onto the concrete that still has that representation of that connection and also the traditional vibe of the nature.

— Mikaila Stevens