Melody Gao finds her voice through art and creativity

By Staff Writers Kaysten Ho and Matthew Zhang

Before she found art, Senior Melody Gao found stories. From a young age, Gao spent much of her time reading. As books came to life in her imagination, she developed a desire to express her own stories and ideas through art. “I didn’t know what stuff like death meant, so [I] had to find some way to express it … so I would think about or make up a bunch of stories in my head [to understand],” Gao said.

 As she grew older, Gao’s parents encouraged her to take art classes, where she began experimenting with visual art. “[Sometimes] your parents force you to do random things so that you might develop an interest in something. I thought [art] was fun. Then I got pretty good at it,” she said. At first, getting good at drawing portraits was just a natural result of Gao’s developing interest. “I never took it seriously, like in a competitive or professional type of way … I just kept having fun with it,” Gao said. 

After attending California State Summer School for the Arts (CSSSA) in the summer of 2026, Gao began to think beyond the realistic, reference-based art she had focused on before. Surrounded by artists with a wide variety of styles and approaches, Gao questioned something that had once been part of what made art enjoyable to her: being good at it. When she was younger, getting better at drawing came naturally with having fun. At CSSSA, she started noticing that technical skill was not necessarily what made a piece meaningful. “It became less about how good the art was … It was more just to see how it made you feel or if you could see some representation of [the artists] in it,” Gao said. She started viewing her assignments as opportunities to make creative choices.

One of Gao’s favorite projects is a ceramic piece she built during her time at CSSSA as a 3D representation of a face. “It’s not just like [a] fully  realistic face … more like … [something] that I made up on my own instead of copying directly from a photo,” Gao said. She had long enjoyed drawing detailed portraits, so creating one in 3D gave her a new way to work with a subject she was already familiar with. Using a plaster mask of her own face as a base, she used  clay to replace one eye with an eye-shaped city and add mountains and binary code. The other side of the face became a collection of media references connected to themes of nihilism and finding meaning in the world. 

Through art, Gao also began to look beyond simple labels when understanding others. “You can’t really give something a label,” Gao said. She applies this perspective to the way she understands people, as well. “I approach interactions more like seeing the complete thing … to better understand them as a person,” Gao said. 

While visual art gives Gao room for interpretation, she also communicates her ideas through poetry, songwriting, and Japanese song lyric translations which she now shares on her own private Instagram account. “Words have a concrete definition, so it’s easier to know, ‘Oh, this word definitely means this one thing I want to show.’” Gao said. Both forms of art allow her to take something she has imagined and turn it into a tangible form that others can also enjoy. 

For Gao, art does not need to resolve into one perfect interpretation. The inherent diversity in interpretations brings Gao back to what drew her to stories in the first place. Now, through songwriting, visual art, writing, and translating, Gao creates stories and ideas of her own. “I hope someone at MSJ can read [my works] and become [happier],” Gao said.