reese ford

Many artists put color secondary to form when creating a new piece. For junior Reese Ford, however, color takes the spotlight in her vibrant paintings and animations.

interview by neil rathi

Ford is one of just a few million teenagers with synesthesia, a phenomenon which the stimulation of one sense causes involuntary stimulation of another. For synesthetes, this often means that two senses feel as if they are “merged.” Ford has grapheme–color synesthesia, where letters and numbers each have their own distinct colors.

For Ford, color is critical. “Colors are the most important thing in my life,” she says, “I see them every day when I read and do math–there are different colors for different letters and numbers.”

While to some, this might seem like a distraction, Ford has used them as a powerful tool for her art. “They’re not an annoyance, and I love them a lot, so I think that color is a really important principle of art that I use when I draw and animate,” she explains, “everything is so vibrant, and I want people to see the world in the same way I do.”

Her use of color isn’t the only thing distinct about her art. Outside of painting, Ford creates creative, hand drawn animations and short films. Her Youtube channel has garnered an impressive five thousand subscribers, and her animations have a combined total of 1.2 million views.

The ongoing pandemic hasn’t been a major setback for Ford. “Quarantine gave me a lot of time that I used to develop personal projects that I wouldn’t have had otherwise.” One of these personal projects is New Floors, an animated short film that consists of original music and astoundingly detailed frames. The story “was a representation of the phases of grief and how people deal with them differently, but mostly in the same way, because there’s a common human experience of having stages of grief,” she explains, “it follows a character who gets a big message which kind of ruins her day, and you see her go through the anger, depression, and then acceptance.”

The film, like much of her art, was the product of intensive hard work and meticulous refinement. “I’m a perfectionist when it comes to animation, so I want my animations to be the best that I can make them,” she says.

If you’d like to see more of Reese’s art, you can follow her on Instagram (@riise__) or YouTube (@riise).