‘A museum of my existence’
Art Education junior Isabella Obradovich has built a following for her art; now she wants to use her learned experiences to help others grow too
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Art Education junior Isabella Obradovich has built a following for her art. (Photo by Scott Kissell)
‘A museum of my existence’
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Published
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Dozens of colorful faces decorate the walls of ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú University junior Isabella “Isa” Obradovich’s bedroom; most of the portraits are of her own making, and a few prints were hung in support of her friends.
From some of her earliest drawings to her latest creations, Obradovich’s walls tell a story of personal and professional growth. Her bedroom, however, isn’t the only place her work is displayed. Across social media platforms, Obradovich shares her artistic process with her over two million followers.
She started posting her drawings to Instagram, @isabella.drawsss, in the eighth grade. At the time, Obradovich was searching for feedback on her art, but found herself piecing together a community. After sharing updates on a drawing she was creating of singer ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉúie Ellish, her following grew to tens of thousands of people and earned a like on the final product from the subject herself.
“(Social media) was a way to facilitate community building for me because I didn't have that in person,” Obradovich said. “It was a way for me to maintain friendships and share my interests.”
Obradovich expanded her social network to TikTok and YouTube, earning 45.4 million likes on TikTok and over 730 million views on her YouTube videos and Shorts. The growth in her platform translates fluidly with her personal evolution, she said.
“It's become really a way for me to showcase my journey as a pre-service art educator; to showcase not just my artistic interests but also just to share my joy for skating, share my joy for the (art) department here that has taught me so much and built so much confidence in me,” Obradovich said.
One of the areas of Obradovich’s life that she has recently reconnected with and began posting about is her love for ice skating. She grew up competing as a synchronized skater, but she quit competing around the time she started her art Instagram account. Her best experiences skating were formed right on ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú’s campus. Obradovich’s parents drove her to Oxford from her hometown of McLean, Virginia, to attend the university’s ice skating summer camps in middle school.
The environment of campus stuck with her for years, she said, ultimately leading to her decision to apply for college at ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú. She toured campus during the art department’s Arts Day in 2021.
“I brought a couple of my pieces that I had in my admissions portfolio because there were portfolio reviews, and I brought them in a trash bag because I didn't have a portfolio and they were pretty big,” Obradovich said.
She fell for the art department during her visit because she felt they really took time to know her as a person and as an artist.
“These professors and these staff members and these current students were taking time out of their day to just talk to me and answer any of my questions with what I perceive as full honesty,” she said. “It was just so lovely, and then I knew I needed to be there.”
From some of her earliest drawings to her latest creations, Obradovich’s walls tell a story of personal and professional growth. Her bedroom, however, isn’t the only place her work is displayed. Across social media platforms, Obradovich shares her artistic process with her over two million followers.
She started posting her drawings to Instagram, @isabella.drawsss, in the eighth grade. At the time, Obradovich was searching for feedback on her art, but found herself piecing together a community. After sharing updates on a drawing she was creating of singer ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉúie Ellish, her following grew to tens of thousands of people and earned a like on the final product from the subject herself.
“(Social media) was a way to facilitate community building for me because I didn't have that in person,” Obradovich said. “It was a way for me to maintain friendships and share my interests.”
Obradovich expanded her social network to TikTok and YouTube, earning 45.4 million likes on TikTok and over 730 million views on her YouTube videos and Shorts. The growth in her platform translates fluidly with her personal evolution, she said.
“It's become really a way for me to showcase my journey as a pre-service art educator; to showcase not just my artistic interests but also just to share my joy for skating, share my joy for the (art) department here that has taught me so much and built so much confidence in me,” Obradovich said.
One of the areas of Obradovich’s life that she has recently reconnected with and began posting about is her love for ice skating. She grew up competing as a synchronized skater, but she quit competing around the time she started her art Instagram account. Her best experiences skating were formed right on ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú’s campus. Obradovich’s parents drove her to Oxford from her hometown of McLean, Virginia, to attend the university’s ice skating summer camps in middle school.
The environment of campus stuck with her for years, she said, ultimately leading to her decision to apply for college at ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú. She toured campus during the art department’s Arts Day in 2021.
“I brought a couple of my pieces that I had in my admissions portfolio because there were portfolio reviews, and I brought them in a trash bag because I didn't have a portfolio and they were pretty big,” Obradovich said.
She fell for the art department during her visit because she felt they really took time to know her as a person and as an artist.
“These professors and these staff members and these current students were taking time out of their day to just talk to me and answer any of my questions with what I perceive as full honesty,” she said. “It was just so lovely, and then I knew I needed to be there.”
Obradovich's art was used for the cover of ARTline, the statewide magazine for the Ohio Art Education Association.
When going over her 13-page resume, Obradovich simply said: “I love doing stuff.”
What she’s been digging into over the last few semesters has earned her presenter spots at local, state, and national conferences, as well as winning awards along the way for her work. Obradovich has found a way to blend all of her interests into an undergraduate research project that directly impacts her artist community.
Over the summer, Obradovich worked with the Western Center for Social Impact and Innovation while taking part in the Undergraduate Summer Scholars program. Through that effort, she began to build a database of resources to help artists grow their social media presence through free and easy-to-understand online resources.
“This is about increasing accessibility to information, about how growing an audience online by sharing your art can lead to various artistic and professional career opportunities beyond social media,” Obradovich said.
She herself has struggled to find reliable resources not blocked by a paywall or ones impossible to navigate, not just as an artist, but as a researcher.
“It was driving me nuts and I hated it, but it needs to be done,” she said. “That's just proof that what I'm doing is filling a gap in what exists out there.”
The research and developing database ties together her artistry and social media experience, but it also links directly to her passion for teaching art and making art education accessible to everyone.
“I believe that access to information should be free,” she said.
When she says she wants to make art education accessible to everyone, she’s not just referring to English speakers. Obradovich grew up speaking French and Spanish as her first languages. She later learned English, but she has firsthand experience in English as a Second Language courses.
“Art is such a universal mode of communication that it really is a way you can tap into creating those connections and facilitating those connections across language barriers but through visual means,” she said.
Obradovich added a Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages certificate to her degree program to facilitate her interest in crossing those barriers. And, for fun, she’s picking up Russian.
“I just love language learning,” Obradovich said.
Her love for language, art, community, and education is embedded directly into her online presence. Her social media platforms have become what she says is “a museum of my existence.” That museum will be translated into a reality for Obradovich’s Honors College senior project.
“I want to put together this solo exhibition for myself where the whole theme of it is just my personal growth and my journey from the time that I discovered ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú as a figure skater in sixth grade to graduating in 2026,” she said.
Even though she gets a bit bashful when her friends playfully tease her by acting starstruck when seeing her around campus, Obradovich said she knows all the work she’s put into growing and learning is something to celebrate.
“I'm so proud of myself; this is crazy. I have never been able to say that before because my confidence was so low before I got here. But, everybody here just believes in me,” Obradovich said.