Local 14-year-old prodigy turns heads with paintings

MOSS POINT, Miss. (WXXV) — After only one year of experience, a 14-year-old art prodigy in Hancock County is already creating incredible pieces of artwork and catching the eyes of those near and far.

“I’m really excited. I can see my whole life painting,” said Adrian Peace.

Fourteen-year-old Adrian doesn’t have much experience in the arts, but you would never guess it by looking at her work.

“It wasn’t until like last year that I started actually painting, and I really don’t know why. I was studying history in school, you know, like the renaissance artists, and I thought it was so crazy what they could do, and I thought about how if they could do it, I can too. We’re all human,” she said.

Adrian says she went from spending weeks on one painting, to completing each piece of work in a single day – finding that impressionism is what she enjoys.

“It just happened. I kept trying to explain it to people because they would say, ‘You’re doing so good. I can not believe it.’ But, I didn’t even have the knowledge of what I was doing – the techniques I was using. I was just trying to make it look like whatever picture,” said Adrian. “That is proof that this is only from God – that I can’t do it on my own, because I don’t even understand what I’m doing. It just happens.”

Her work caught the eye of local artist Jason Pittman, who has since become her mentor.

“He was the one who pushed me to do my very first mural, you know, I had only done that size and he said ‘Do a mural. It’s easy,’ and I’m like, ‘Okay,’ and I did it. I’ve always had it in me, but I didn’t realize it at all. He’s been working with me a lot with the mindset of just not going into it with, ‘I’ll try. Well, I don’t know if I can do it, because I’ve never done it before.’ Just going into it saying ‘Okay. I got this,’ and I’ve been able to do it,” Adrian said.

Pittman immediately took Adrian under his wing after she attended one of his classes. That was only three weeks ago.

“It was instant. I could just see the talent, and I could see that she has a gift. I want to invest in her. I want to help her in any way that I can,” said Pittman. “The biggest thing is how fast she picks up on things that it took me years, actually. I have a degree in art, I studied art. It took me a lot of trial and error and work to learn these things. Things it takes adults years, she just naturally picks up, not just understands it, she can implement it in her paintings, which really is just mind-blowing, but it’s very cool to watch. She is a prodigy.”

He says Adrian has grown immensely in her art in such a short period of time, and he sees her potential as limitless.

“She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s gonna be famous. Sky’s the limit for her. I see her as being a major influencer, probably with millions of followers, doing online courses, selling her art. There’s nothing that she can’t do,” he said.

Through her experience finding her passion, Adrian has just one thing she wants the community to know.

“Try it. Don’t be so scared. Don’t limit yourself. Just try to paint,” said Adrian. “I mean, a lot of these paintings, if you saw it only an hour in, it looks really, really bad, but that’s the beauty of painting — you just paint over it and you can turn out something really, really good.”

Adrian now sells her artwork with help from Pittman. As for the future, she hopes to continue growing her craft and one day teach art to children.