Rising Stars: Meet Seerat Kang of Los Angeles, California

Today we’d like to introduce you to Seerat Kang

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I have, to a certain degree, always been interested in the arts my entire life. My journey with photo work started when I was 13 years old on a trip to India to visit family and sight see. My father gave me his old point and shoot to use for the duration of our trip and I just simply never stopped. Growing up I had a deep love and appreciation in art and film, which I had also inherited from my father. Eventually, my passion for storytelling developed into a love for writing. After picking up the camera, I felt as if I found another modality for storytelling. I am by no means a photographer, but photo gives me the opportunity to not only express myself and whatever story I have in mind–it allows me to capture the world around me from my point of view. Though I’ve had no formal training, I’ve now built up what feels like 12 years of experience capturing my surroundings and finding new ways to dedicate myself to storytelling.
As I got older, my education led me towards the sciences which served as a spring board for the development of my deep interest and appreciation for people and emotion. It reawakened my interest in photography and has led me to where I am today. The camera gives me the opportunity to explore, share, and articulate what makes the people around me and the emotions we all share so meaningful. Though the influence might not be obvious, it’s been a conduit for connection in my life both artistically and personally. It allows me to draw on my experiences as a woman, as a child of Panjabi-Sikh immigrants, and as an academic in a way that grounds and connects me back to my community. It’s helped me reconnect with my own, sometimes large, emotions in a way that feels productive and meaningful.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
A lot of my journey took place in adolescence, I felt lost, much like any other teenager. I was not a particularly diligent student in grade school and maintained a mild rebellious streak throughout those years (much to my mother’s dismay). At that time, photography and the arts were a saving grace–it gave me a way to channel what I was feeling into something tangible and creative. I spent a lot of college confused as to what I wanted to do, majoring in writing didn’t seem stable nor had I really envisioned what career I’d go for outside of it.
I gained some clarity when I took my very first upper division psychology course–I was able to connect everything I was interested in together into something that can be studied. I had always felt my emotions deeply, psychology opened the doors to a deeper understanding into what made emotion, emotion. This eventually led me to building an interest in emotion regulation, memory, and the brain–but most importantly–people. A lot of my challenges were internal with emotion, self-expression, and limiting beliefs. When I finally found the connection between my art and my academic interests–I blossomed both professionally and creatively. I wouldn’t describe my journey, or anyone’s for that matter, as smooth or linear because life will continue to happen whether we account for it or not. I just got lucky that I found two things that resonated with me so deeply while life was happening around me.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I think at my core I’m very much like everyone else–which is spectacular and special in it’s own way. In Los Angeles especially, there are so many creatives both trained and self-taught that create such interesting visions using the same mediums. Amongst all of it, I believe my work reflects me as a person honestly. My mood, the story i’m delivering, the people surrounding me–they’re all in my work–like a diary almost. I really value being able to mix in other techniques and forms of expression into my photo work–primarily collage. Working with multiple mediums really allows me to better capture the image in my head and essence of the person i’m capturing in a more accurate manner. It allows for more creative imagery and helps me feel more physically connected to my craft. I really love bright colors and alternative styles of art–tied in with the stylistic influences from my Panjabi-Sikh heritage–I think it makes for something very unique to me and my lens towards the world. My work, as I approach it, is an expression of myself and the people I encounter and stylistically I believe it’s allowed me to connect with a wide group of people who are both similar and wildly different from me. That is what i’m most proud of when it comes to my work–it’s served as a conduit for connection not only for me but the people around me as well.

How do you think about happiness?
In most cases I’d list off my academic pursuits and working on my art—at it’s core though–it’s connection and being fully myself. To a certain degree, and I feel like a lot of brown women would agree with me here, is that I felt a disconnect with who I was and what I wanted to put out when I was young. That paired with normal life adversities that we all face, even the things that had brought me joy, like my artwork, felt upsetting to engage in–the feeling of “difference” overshadowed a lot of it.
As i’ve gotten older and found more comfort in myself and realized I’m really not that much different from the people around me. I found that, that realization and being fully myself brought an unmeasurable amount of happiness I hadn’t had before. Embracing my passions, being open to connection, and being comfortable to sharing it all really stemmed from acceptance of myself no matter what stage I was at. Finding comfort and acceptance in myself allowed me to enjoy what was around me much more thoroughly. I was able to move out of myself and find happiness in just creating, in Sunday morning coffee, and the smaller aspects of life. As a born and bred Angelino, being able to be my unabashed self, connecting with the community I’ve grown up with in LA, and interacting with the world around me from that point of view is, what I think, makes me happy.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://seeratkang.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/cecekang