The 7 a.m. Chicago morning winds gust through Natalie Jeng’s apartment as she gets up for the day. She packs her bag of art supplies, getting ready to head out to school, but makes one last stop at her favorite bakery to grab a bag of green French macarons. As she makes her way into the studio, she sits down for her figure drawing class. Snacking on gummy bears, she draws a portrait of a nude model from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. After class, she ends the night cooking with her roommate.
Natalie Jeng, PHS 2019 graduate and co-founder of the school club Art Jam, is now a sophomore at The Art Institute of Chicago and has been doing art ever since she could remember. Besides focusing on painting, she said that she loves animation, baking, the color purple, and daydreaming.
“I’m a pretty imaginative person and I like to daydream, and art allows me to express that imaginative side,” Jeng said.
Jeng said she is a complete food junkie and most of her artwork is food. Her art instagram account is @pearlytiare. In her senior year of high school, she said she made an art piece referencing The Pale Man, a character from the movie Pan’s Labyrinth, looking at a table full of dessert. This painting is being showcased at the de Young. 
“The Pale Man was made as I was transitioning from paintings celebrating the social and cathartic joys of eating to darker works which reflect on my struggles with binge eating and diet culture” Jeng said. “The painting has a unique mix of both charming and ominous tones, featuring a man disapproving of the fantastic buffet before him, creating a dynamic tension.”
According to the de Young website, to celebrate the museum’s 125th anniversary, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco are hosting the de Young Open, an art exhibition of submissions by artists who live in the Bay Area. After submitting her painting, The Pale Man, Natalie found out that her artwork will be showcased in the exhibit this fall. The de Young filled the 12,000-square-foot Herbst Exhibition Galleries with 877 artworks by 762 Bay Area artists.
“This was a very rare and lucky opportunity, and I’m so grateful for the de Young for showing local artists,” Jeng said.
Jeng said she made the painting in Gilian Bailey’s class in 2019 and submitted it spontaneously during quarantine because her mom encouraged her to. This fall, Jeng said her parents surprised her with a trip home to see the opening of the exhibit.
“All the artists who got accepted into the show got invited to a reception,” Jeng said. “It was so interesting that everyone around me was also a part of the show,” Jeng said.
Jeng said her close friend and co-founder of Art Jam, Saira Brown, accompanied her to the exhibition. Brown said she has known Natalie since sixth grade and has a painting of Natalie’s in her house.
“Jeng definitely takes what she loves and makes something super interesting and hilarious,” Brown said. “She has taught me so much.”
Before college, Jeng said she has always been surrounded by art. Her dad does art as a hobby and gave her painting lessons in elementary school, and her mom loves doing crafts. In addition to art, Natalie has also worked in animation.
“I won a film festival in middle school and the prize was to go on a tour with Mark Andrews, [the director of “Brave”] of Pixar,” Jeng said. “I’m getting back into my love for animation and am taking an animation course right now.”
Another close friend and co-founder of Art Jam Brooke Henershott said she has known Jeng since freshman year of high school. Hendershott said Jeng came up to her and Brown during sophomore year and asked them if they wanted to start an art club. She said Art Jam took a few weeks to get started, but they eventually got the ball rolling. In Art Jam, they created the diversity mural in the 30s building. 
“I love [Jeng’s] pure, unbridled chaos,” Hendershott said. “She’s got that raw talent that people are just born with.”
In sophomore year of high school, Jeng said they got Alex Hirsch, the creator of the TV show Gravity Falls and PHS alum, to speak at one of the Art Jam meetings.
“[The creator] told me that the people who are successful really go out of their way and try to learn as much as possible by learning on their own and doing extra, which is something I really took to heart,” Jeng said.
Jeng said one of her biggest challenges was deciding if she wanted to go to art school. She said that the art industry is getting better with providing more jobs, but it still feels like society values STEM and puts humanities and arts as secondary. 
“My main challenge was to trust myself and continue to do what I love to do,” Jeng said. “I explored and took a lot of STEM classes in high school, but in the end, I feel like I made the right choice.”
Jeng said art has taught her to be persistent, some paintings having taken her over one hundred hours to finish.
Looking back as a sophomore in college, Jeng said she realized there is no “bad” art. In high school, she said she worked on always getting the perfect stroke.
“I had a hard time in the past, thinking that even though I loved art, I wasn’t good enough to do it as a career,” Jeng said. “I’ve learned to put those thoughts away and to trust myself.”
Jeng’s art piece, The Pale Man, is at the de Young in the de Young Open exhibit through Jan. 3, 2021. The de Young is open for visitors Tuesday through Sunday from 9:30 a.m. to 5:15 p.m.. Admission is free for youth (17 and under) or $6 for students with a valid ID.
