Pictured with Centre City Banners I designed for the City of Calgary bridges and Olympic Plaza
Photo by Jared Sych for Avenue Magazine
I am a Chinese German Polish mixed media illustrator and animator currently based in Calgary, Alberta. I graduated with a BFA in New Media from the University of Lethbridge in 2007.
Growing up inspired by skateboarding graphics, music, album covers, and Saturday morning cartoons, my art plays with these nostalgic elements to bring forward peculiar worlds.
Absurding the norm and introducing the weird into an environment, whether in illustration or live action animation, my work brings strange life to image. Creepy, playful, with elements of softness and manic absurdity, illustrations act as a window into a world with no explanation in which the characters inhabit.
Using self-contained narrative, these misfit inhabitants are embracing small moments of discovery and childish curiosity of exploration.
I currently sit as a board member for Quickdraw Animation Society and am a full time working freelance artist. I have been featured as the cover artist of the Believer Magazine and was artistic lead for the 2018 Calgary Folk Fest. In 2021 I was selected to be the City of Calgary's Centre City Banner Artist, as such my banner designs were installed leading into and around the downtown area. One of my illustrations for my series Escapes And Trapdoors: Diversions From Life In Poverty created for The Believer Magazine was a finalist for an American Society of Magazine Editors national magazine award in the category of Best Digital Illustration in 2021. I also have contributed animation and post-production for various Juno Award and Much Music Video Award nominated music videos. In 2022 my children's book project "The Curious Invitation", created for Willaim Joseph Agency, won three Anvil Awards. Later that same year I created the feature image for Greenpeace's demonstration at COP15 in Montreal, which hung 46 feet high in the downtown "Ring" sculpture. In 2023 the exhibit We Were Here: Stories From Early Chinatown that I created the illustrations for showed at Heritage Park from January to May, after originally running at The Lougheed House.
Some clients include:
Saucony, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Bros Records, Universal Music Group, McDonald's, Puralator, University of Calgary, Polaris Music Prize, The Ringer, Reader's Digest Canada, Maclean's Magazine, Avenue Magazine, Virginia Quarterly Review, Plan Sponsor Magazine, The Believer Magazine, BIG Winter Classic, Beakerhead, Calgary Folk Music Festival, West Jet, Brita, Westwood Records, 604 Records, Republic Records, Columbia Records, The Calgary Underground Film Festival, Sled Island Music Festival, FFWD Weekly, CJSW 90.9 FM, CKXU 88.3 FM, Last Gang Records, Hollywood Records, Paper Bag Records, Glenbow Museum, Village Brewery, Wild Rose Brewery