Kids · Samara Umbral

In Kids, Samara Umbral turns Facebook photos of adolescent girls into meticulously rendered paintings. Her subjects are self-represented, captured via their smart phones or digital cameras within the context of their respective lives.

In explaining her work, Umbral states: "To me, photographs as tangible objects seem relegated to the past, as everyone has a digital camera or camera phone. The number of digital images is immense — yet most are easily erasable and generally banal. I do not intend to burden viewers by turning ephemera into objects of greater permanence. ... But I am captivated by the tender, transitory moments of the snapshots I select. I also enjoy the transformative effect of employing watercolor and oils to capture these digital images."

Umbral earned a bachelor of fine arts in painting from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2009.