Ambivalence can be defined as the state of having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas, and one Instagram artist built an entire body of work around this emotion. Ambivalently Yours became a true sensation thanks to her viral illustrations that explore the depth of conflicting emotions.
Ambivalently Yours has a Bachelor’s and a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts, and she spent the last two decades working in the creative fields. She’s an illustrator, animator, and graphic designer who did everything from doing pro-bono work for her mom’s knitting group to working with such high-profile clients as Cosmopolitan and BuzzFeed.
The Canadian artist wants her body of work to capture the transformative potential of conflicting emotions, finding beauty and connection in the chaos of uncertainty.
“I do not want to tell you how to feel, I am perpetually ambivalent. Every feeling has a counter-feeling, a feeling omitted for brevity, a feeling appended for homogeneity. We must express ourselves deliberately, honesty only exists in our moments of hesitation,” she explains on her official website.
In addition to sharing her work with 170,000 Instagram followers, Ambivalently Yours also hosted several exhibitions, started a web shop selling merch with her illustrations, and published a book called Fire and Other Feelings.
