Meet Sriya Reddy

We were lucky to catch up with Sriya Reddy recently and have shared our conversation below.

Sriya Reddy, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?

For the longest time, I didn’t know my purpose. I only knew that I had to study, get a degree, and find a job with stable income. That was how I viewed life, a pragmatic and safer path always seemed like the wiser choice.

In school, when art was no longer a compulsory subject after a certain grade, it left a void. Without that creative space, I followed the paths expected of me. Medicine, finance, or engineering felt like the right choices at the time. I studied commerce and economics, believing that painting, crafts, or photography were only hobbies meant for leisure. In India, art was often seen this way, as something to enjoy in your free time but not as a real career.

Yet the absence of art kept weighing on me. During my undergraduate years I gradually gravitated toward Mass Communication, Literature, and Political Science. It was then that I came across the film Dead Poets Society. That film became the turning point. It showed me that art could be more than a hobby, that words and ideas have the power to change the world. It reinstated my love for art and made me realize that “The Road Not Taken” is not just a poem but a lived testimony of what it means to be an artist in a time and place where art was rarely seen as more than a pastime.
Reading about the realities of the world through journalism and the historical events of mankind through political science, literature became a driving force for me. I began to see how art has always helped communities psychologically. It documents tragedies, builds resilience, and creates space for hope. That understanding eventually led me to animation, where I could merge craft with storytelling and create environments and props that hold memory and emotion.
And while I have found my path, I also know that purpose is not fixed. It is something I will continue to build and evolve with time, always growing and reshaping as I do.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I am professionally a 3D environment artist and storyteller, but getting to this point has been quite a journey in itself.

In high school I studied economics and commerce. Even though these subjects were enlightening, they never made me feel competitive or alive. I chose them because they felt safer as it was the kind of career everyone around me was pursuing.

During my undergraduate years I shifted toward Journalism, Political Science, and Literature, hoping to find a version of the arts that was more accepted. At the same time, I was deeply involved in the National Cadet Corps (NCC), one of India’s largest youth organizations. Balancing NCC with my studies taught me discipline, focus, and endurance. I had the honor of representing my state at Republic Day Camp and representing India abroad through the Youth Exchange Program. I ended my three years in NCC as a Senior Under Officer, the highest rank a cadet can achieve. Managing both academics and NCC side by side was not easy, but those years shaped me with resilience, competitiveness, and a strong sense of community.

When the pandemic began, I had to pause and reflect. For years I had trained for the armed forces, but in the stillness of lockdown I realized what had been there all along, my paintings on the walls, the comics I scribbled about my parents, the vlogs and edits I made for fun. Storytelling has always been my constant. That realization pushed me to enroll in a one-year animation course, build a portfolio, and eventually get accepted into SCAD, one of the top designing colleges in the United States.

It was always art, and it will always be art. Pursuing animation brought back the sense of competitiveness I had missed, but this time it was rooted in joy. Assignments became the kind of work six-year-old me had always dreamed of. None of this would have been possible without my parents. My father always told me to do what I love but to be the best at it, and he has been my safety net every step of the way. My mother’s unconditional love and sacrifices gave me the courage to embrace my true calling.

Today my work focuses on the idea that objects and spaces are more than just background. They carry memory, history, and emotion. What excites me most is the way art can connect people across time and place. I truly love to collaborate with other artists, because that is where one truly learns and grows. Working alongside people from different disciplines pushes me to see ideas in new ways, and I carry those lessons back into my own practice. Those collaborations have resulted in some of my best works.

Itlu is my thesis film, a personal project close to my childhood and a tribute to the way memories shape us. I was also part of the team behind Overgrown!, a 2.5D game on Steam that became a finalist for the Rookie Awards in the Console and PC category. Earlier this year I collaborated with BMW: M series through SCADPro, exploring how animation can work as both a marketing tool and a creative bridge.

As I graduate, I want to bring this blend of craft, storytelling, and collaboration into professional studios while continuing to share my work through festivals and online platforms. This is only the beginning of my journey, and there are so many more fields I have yet to explore through art.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Looking back, I think the three qualities that shaped me most are patience, exploration, and resilience.

Patience came through trial and error. Art is subjective, and no matter where you are in your skillset, you have to be willing to fail first. For a long time I thought everything had to be perfect from the beginning, but I eventually realized that you just need to make it first and let perfection come later with practice. That shift in thinking made the process far less intimidating and gave me the freedom to experiment.

Exploration has been just as important. When I first started at SCAD, I felt imposter syndrome around peers who had already specialized, while I was still trying to find my place. I initially chose modeling and texturing, but working alongside lighting artists, rigging artists, and VFX artists opened new doors. I learned their methods, observed their workflows, and carried those lessons back into my own practice. By the end of my degree, even though I specialized in modeling and texturing, I had also gained skills in rigging, animating, and lighting. Exploration gave me versatility, the ability to adapt across roles and pipelines, and ultimately made me a more complete technical artist.

Resilience is the quality that carried me the furthest. Coming to the U.S. as an international student with no background in animation was challenging. I often felt the pressure to prove myself and work harder, knowing the comforts of home I had left behind. Resilience is what kept me moving forward when imposter syndrome set in. It reminded me why I started and helped me grow into the artist I am today.

The advice I would give to anyone early in their journey is to be kinder to yourself. It is easy to feel like you are not good enough and to get caught in the spiral of comparison. That is part of human nature, but it should not consume you. Everyone is on their own path, and only you can decide what kind of art you want to create and the artist you want to become. With the resources, tutorials, and communities available today, there are countless ways to grow, but you must allow yourself the space to learn without judgment. From my own experience I can say with certainty that you can become anything you want, as long as you are willing to put in the work.

A friend once gave me an analogy that has stayed with me: your thoughts can either be like a fibrous root or a tap root. Fibrous roots spread in every direction but never go deep, while tap roots grow downward with focus and strength. The same is true for your thoughts. It is easy to feel overwhelmed by the amount of art that exists for consumption and to get caught up in comparing yourself to others. In those moments your thoughts scatter like fibrous roots, pulling you in every direction. But if you can direct your focus like a tap root, you can ground yourself, grow with intention, and create art that truly reflects who you are.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?

Yes, I am always looking for collaborators, but more than anything, I am looking for people who can challenge me and my vision. I have learned that growth really happens when you step outside your comfort zone, and the best collaborations are the ones that push you to see differently, think deeper, and stretch your creative boundaries.

I have been lucky to experience that in so many projects. My thesis film Itlu was a deeply personal story, but it only came to life because of the input of other artists. The same goes for Overgrown!, the 2.5D game that became a Rookie Awards finalist, and the SCADpro x BMW: M Series collaboration, where I got to explore how animation works not just in film but also in games and marketing. Even smaller student film projects taught me the same lesson: ideas become stronger when different voices come together, and the result can always be seen in the final product.

For me, art is one of the most powerful tools we have. It can bring people together, let us experience different cultures, document the world as it is, and also give us the chance to escape into imaginative worlds. This is still just the beginning of my journey, and I know there are so many more fields I have yet to explore. If you would like to collaborate, you can connect with me on ArtStation, LinkedIn, or through my portfolio site.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.artstation.com/sriyareddy7
• Instagram: @sri___irs
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sriya-reddy-8ab9b124b
• Other: [email protected]