CINCINNATI, Ohio—For many artists, they create art to bring joy to other people. While that rings true for senior art student Nytaya Babbitt, she also creates art when she’s angry.

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Nytatya Babbitt spends a lot of time in her art studio at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. Putting on her apron to protect her clothes from the medium she prefers to create her art with.

“I can mess with it as many times as I want to and then cover it back up with more paint," Babbitt said.

But for Babbitt, she doesn’t just paint to paint.

“I do art with a message usually because I’m angry at something I can’t control," she said.

That anger helped inspire her current collection of paintings. 

“I started thinking about what happened over the summer with Breonna Taylor and all the things happening towards Black women," Babbitt said. "I thought to center my thesis project around Black women and their voices when narrating their own images.”

And each painting is based on a Black woman that Babbitt interviewed herself.

“I decided to do QR codes for all of them so you can scan this, listen to their interviews as you’re viewing their paintings because the whole concept is that you listen to these women as they narrate their own image instead of you portraying or narrating it yourself," she said.

The first three paintings in her collection were so well received, she earned first place in the emerging artists awards with SummerFair Cincinnati. Something Babbitt says validates all the time she spends here.

“A lot of times I’m just in this building working at night by myself," Babbitt said. "So it’s nice to see that all the work that I put in has been paying off.”

And even as she cleans out her brushes for the evening, and looks toward her uncertain future, she’s certain as long as she’s creating art with a purpose, she’ll be happy.

“If I keep doing what I’m doing and making sure I get a message out there then I’ll be fine," she said.