Anetha Evans’ artwork lives at the intersection of Japanese culture and coastal waters.

Bold strokes of black ink meet swirling watercolors. Soft blues and pinks blend with stark profile sketches.

Anetha, 24, who lives in Virginia Beach, is an experimental artist. And much like her creations, where opposites converge, Anetha herself is pursuing a career where two seemingly different concepts — business and art — meld together to create something beautiful.

“Creativity has a purpose in business,” said Anetha, who graduated from Old Dominion University’s Strome College of Business with a Master of Business Administration in December 2025. “You start with a concept and build your experiences around it.”

The daughter of a U.S. Marine, Anetha lived in Okinawa, Japan, for six years — first from 2009-2012 and again from 2018-2021. During that time, she fell in love with Japanese culture and art, from Japanese manga-style comics to traditional sumi-e ink paintings.

As a child, Anetha dreamed of exhibiting her creations. As she grew older, that dream evolved into a goal of opening an art business where she could sell her work, including scrunchies made from kimono fabric, delicate paper crane earrings and original illustrations. More than that, she wanted to create an art studio that encouraged creative expression not just for herself, but for others as well.

Anetha knew, however, that sustaining an art studio required more than artistic talent alone. She needed an entrepreneurial skill set.

“I wanted to be confident in data analysis, leadership, decision-making and marketing,” she said.

That realization led Anetha to Old Dominion University and the Strome College of Business. She enrolled in the MBA program in May 2024 determined to build the business foundation that would support her creative goals.

Courses emphasizing finance, economics and analytics pushed Anetha outside her comfort zone. But rather than setting her creativity aside, she leaned into it.

And her efforts didn’t go unnoticed.

“Anetha enriched the MBA course on international business by providing real-life examples of the different cultural nuances of products, the opportunities for foreign market entry and the complex choices international managers are facing,” said Martin Goossen, Ph.D., associate dean of Undergraduate Programs at the Strome College of Business and one of Anetha’s International Business professors. “She used the frameworks and tool set in this course to explore alternative business models that allow her to combine East and West.”

Anetha quickly discovered that her artistic perspective enriched classroom discussions and assignments, offering alternative ways to think through problems and solutions. To maintain balance, she kept art as a constant in her routine, developing a new manga-style comic series and pursuing creative opportunities across campus and in the community alongside her coursework.

During her time at ODU, Anetha also used resources through the Monarch Internship and Co-Op Office to help sell her artwork. In 2025, she and her brother, Jamahl Evans Jr., also a student at ODU, won first prize in the Opportunity Discovery University Competition — a shark-tank-style pitch event where students present business ideas to a panel of judges for funding. They won $2,000 in prize money, which ultimately helped the pair publish a comic book.

“Like art, an MBA can be molded to support what you want to do,” Anetha said. “As long as you understand the fundamentals, you can translate what you’re learning into your own industry.”

That philosophy recently culminated in the launch of her website in January, a milestone Anetha described as exhilarating. After years of planning, seeing her work presented in a space of her own felt both validating and motivating.

“I’m excited for people who are curious to see something unique,” she said.