Fever Dream (2021)
In November 2021, I was down with Covid-19, which left me bedridden for a little more than a week. It was a period of rest and reckoning for me. I stopped searching for things, and I stopped asking questions. I started making things on paper again. Loose leaf papers, Post-Its, old photos. I wrote and drew over the year’s schedule books. I think I have more than enough material to make work for a fair bit of time, and I didn’t want to buy anything new or look any further. I recounted mundane moments in my day-to-day life. I cry and laugh everyday, and I embraced my grumpy moments as they come.
2020 Vision (2020)
The
pandemic made a lot of issues more obvious and
painful to deal with, both at a personal and
society level. There were many times I went
offline to focus on work and to reclaim some solitude,
something that I needed more of, despite isolation
being the default way of life for most of the year.
My illustration was a summary of what I had
seen and felt when I went offline. Watching
people online fighting and trying to one up each
other was exhausting... I had also planned to visit New
York in the summer too, but that became impossible and I found myself working even more instead. There were also many
attempts to ‘fix’ myself and get my shit together,
whatever that means. Clowns became continuous
motif throughout my personal illustrations, as it represents to me a sense of cynicism that I observed in myself and others during that year.I think a lot about my favourite lines in the poem that inspired this illustration: Mary Oliver for Corona Times—Thoughts after the poem Wild Geese by Adrie Kusserow:
Create a new paradigm
Leave a dead quiet behind.
A Hoarder’s Diary (2019)
I think a lot about the word ‘homepage’. I wanted to quite literally create a HOME PAGE. Many portfolio websites lean towards the minimal or the anti-design styles and I did not find a template that fits what I wanted to achieve.
Growing up, I was always daydreaming and living in my own world. I was also drawn to the idea of personal worlds. Not fiction, not fantasy, but a livable dream. I find a lot of comfort in games like Neopets and The Sims. I like looking at interior design, architecture and furniture blogs. I like collecting all sorts of things, and I have plenty of loves. All of this interest manifested in the way that I live my own personal space.
A place can tell more stories about the ones who lived in them and also generate interest and curiosity. What inspires me in my work and life can be seen in the objects I keep, and in the space I live. This was my way of sharing my influences with the world, and to give a glimpse of how they shape my own work.