My monster friends.
Everyone has childhood memories in their hearts, and those innocent times are like candies with different flavors that accompany us as we grow. When I was a child, my vivid imagination enabled me to frequently transform the interesting things around me into Yaoguai, or monsters that accompanied me. They shared laughter and adventures with me and became my staunch supporters. This project divides the stories of the various monster friends in my memory into six chapters and compiles them into an illustration book, examining my childhood and exploring those years of fantasy and warmth.
QUN SHOU TU (Monster Parade）
In this project, I created a unique Monster Parade by studying ancient myths and spirits from Dunhuang murals. The painting depicts a grouping of my monsters, with the sea and mountains of my hometown in the foreground and a view of the cityscape from my Melbourne flat in the background. Inspired by traditional Chinese landscape painting and the aesthetics of Intended Blank, I chose to leave the white space blank to create an illusory and open environment. I use the XU technique of Chinese ink painting to depict the mountain peaks and city buildings, abstracting their shapes while retaining the paint and water’s raw textures.
