Twenty-three-old Crystal Persaud is not your typical artist, while at her day job this young art lover spends her time painting up a storm in an effort of taking her art career further. The young woman, who hails from Herstelling, disclosed to this week’s Buzz that it was around her early teenage years she realised her adoration for the art form, “I grew up like any small child around grandparents. I moved in with my mom as a teenager and that was when I started with this, the passion for art,” Persaud said adding: “At the moment I’m doing landscape, objects, abstract and I’m also getting into portrait. I’m training so I’m not fully into that as yet.”
Persaud who is currently employed as a sales representative at a ‘Tidy-Up’ detergent store on the East Bank of Demerara, said that on slow business days and during her lunch breaks and spare time, she would often ‘whip’ out her canvas and paintbrushes and work on a piece of art.

“So here I do my work and in my spare time I would draw. I work at a detergent refill centre. We sell laundry detergent, things to wash with, dish, carwash and hand soap. Customers would come with their bottles and they would refill any amount that they want. Sometimes for the entire day I would sit down have nothing to do and I would just paint,” she said. The self-taught artist disclosed that she had begun drawing around the age of 15-years-old, however, at that time her interest was short-lived, “This started in 2015 … I would work in town after school and there was this craft shop and I would go into the craft shop and I would always admire all the painting and craft and I just had this connection with the painting,” she said.

She added, “I thought to myself that I want to try, I want to do this but I don’t how to start. Finally the next year I bought some boards and I did some paintings and there was when my courage broke.” Persaud noted that after a hiatus for a few years, she revisited her artwork and began drawing again in 2018 and hasn’t stopped since. Nothing could keep me going so I started up with pencils and sketch and I went back to my paint and since then I haven’t stopped. I started selling my artwork on Facebook, so what I would post them and clients would see them, like them and say I want they want and I would collect their names and curate the piece.”