It's amazing. I'm nitpicking here.
Chilled by its skeleton-like appearance, I embraced myself in front of the haggard bride statue. Participating in the WEMUNC Art Program, my friends and I were visiting Centre Pompidou, the pioneer of modern arts.
and
Impassioned by the extreme color contrast, I danced beside a trash-made cube. In front of a canvas of peacefully overlapping circles, I enclosed myself in a woolen, cozy scarf to convey a sense of tranquility.
In both of these, the power of the sentence constrution is somewhat nullifed by their similarity, I think. It would be much more striking if you switched the order of the clauses of one of the sentences in each of the pairs.
I know it is being oneself that is the real challenge and essence of art-and life, and now that I have the courage to do so, there is nothing else to fear.
You might want to try 'being myself'... that's the only place in the entire essay that you switched to third person.