As I walk around Lake of the Isles in spring, the shadows that bare tree branches cast on newly sprouted grass remind me that there is beauty even in the moments before bloom.

A collaboration between Sophie Wang and Cynthia Yuan Cheng, commissioned by Katie Wang. The Year of the Snake is one of transformation, shedding the old to make way for the new. We are thinking in this particular year of the snake of the agency and power we have to shake off that which does not serve us, and emerge stronger from it. Our snake is a disruption of another classic snake symbol, the ouroboros - we reject the eternal cycle of repeating our history, instead choosing to burst free. We celebrate Indigenous stewardship of our world, understanding that sometimes a little fire is necessary for renewal and new growth - and when the necessary fires are prevented from happening, the eventual overwhelming flames bring only destruction without rebirth. And yet through it all, our connections to each other remain - like underground mycelial networks that pass knowledge and support between fruiting mushroom bodies, even when conditions above ground are dire.

This is the 5th year that Katie has commissioned a Lunar New Year art print from Sophie and Cynthia. The commissions began when Katie, seeing mostly Lunar New Year messages about growing wealth and being rich, wanted decorations that depicted the things she dreamed of instead - things like collective liberation, interdependence, and community support. This year, with the recent saddening losses from the wildfires in LA (and with all three of us having lived in or currently living in LA), we are wishing for collective growth and transformation - both from the destruction of the fires and for ourselves! We hope that this art print brings some energy for growth and transformation in your own lives and communities!

You can find more from Cynthia at cynthiaycheng.com and Sophie at wangshuf.com.

A commission for a friend portraying the recipient, our friend Katie who frequently commissions artist friends for art, as a patron of the arts.

This piece was created in collaboration with Cynthia Yuan Cheng in response to our friend Katie Wang’s call for Lunar New Year red envelope art that celebrated and welcomed into our lives fortune of a more radical form than monetary wealth. Last year, we collaboratively created a piece that celebrated interdependence, mutual aid, and togetherness bringing a community together to celebrate the Lunar New Year. This year, in the year of the dragon, we’re hoping to bring a little more fire and a different kind of power to the celebrations.

Focusing on collective action, justice, organizing, and the power of people together to shape our institutions and futures, our 2024 Lunar New Year piece depicts twin dragon dance dragons held aloft in the streets by the people of the community. The fire from the people’s dragons set fire to a building representing exploitative institutions focused on profit over people, while protest signs at the bottom reflect current fights for justice – for the people of Palestine and beyond. The twin borders contain organizers’ megaphones spitting fire that light firecrackers of justice, which contain the Chinese characters for “wood dragon,” as 2024 is the year of the wood dragon.

The phrases in the banners at the top and the bottom are traditional Chinese idiomatic expressions which are also translated into English: A spark ignites a prairie fire; a drop of water penetrates stone. Actions that may seem small or insignificant can grow to vast movements and strengths unimaginable to us now. Together with the phrase at the top – “they didn’t know we were seeds” – we hope to bring motivation for movement towards cleansing and rejuvenating fire as well as rebirth and healing growth to this new Year of the Dragon 2024.

A study of stairs at the Kew Gardens in London.

A LNY red envelope collaboration with Cynthia Yuan Cheng commissioned by Katie Wang.

Tuesday Night Cafe, the flagship space of Tuesday Night Project is the longest running Asian American public arts series in the US. I was on volunteer staff as stage manager for Tuesday Night Cafe from 2014 to 2019, and in many ways it was integral to my growth as a young adult - in community and in self.

I first created this piece on a whim before a fundraising raffle in 2019, and was invited to turn it into a postcard in 2021 for the first ever TN Box that was shared with our community in lieu of an in-person season during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Piece for Family Style Zine, accompanying writing on the history of ramen by Alex Kanegawa.

To hold what I can’t

Hyunjin from K-pop group Stray Kids as Jing Fei from Chinese historical drama Nirvana in Fire. that’s it, that’s the tweet.

small moods from 2019 (pre-pandemic, right side) and 2021 (mid-pandemic, left side). each done in one sitting.

February 2021, digital.

Commission from Katie Wang to make some radical Lunar New Year decorations that reflect liberation, community, and collective power instead of the usual ones that are about “money, fortune, having more money.”

These wishes invoke:

Left: Our collective voices can smelt gold!

Right: Our collective will can build a city!

Poster commission from Surrija (Jane Lui) for the 6/25/2022 The Round featuring Tomo Nakayama, Goh Nakamura, and Surrija.

As part of fighting greenwashing in the climate movement, I had the honor of doing the art for this comic/infographic on the impacts of and Indigenous resistance to lithium mining for electric vehicles and so-called “renewable” energy by the Center for Interdisciplinary Environmental Justice. Check out the full thing in larger strip form (or download as 11x17 poster) as well as the rest of CIEJ’s incredible Anti-Greenwashing toolkit here!

Commission for Azay Little Tokyo’s Holiday Meal (2020)

Originally posted on twitter HERE.

Originally posted on twitter HERE.

A menu illustration commission for Azay Little Tokyo’s Valentine’s Weekend Brunch, February 2021.

Header image created for the Free Radical Periodical newsletter

1) I spoke Chinese before I spoke English, and yet there are so many words I know in English that I do not know how to say in Chinese. Many words I must think in English and translate into Chinese in my head - as time passes, the deliberateness and the plodding, careful quality of my sentences grows. Here are some words I know better in Chinese than in English. Here are some vegetables. 

2) My parents never made me eat my vegetables. My parents taught me to love vegetables through the sheer force of their own love of vegetables. My father grew up on a farm growing vegetables. (And peanuts). He says he loves it when it rains because it reminds him of how when he was little (the oldest boy of 3 children on a farm), he didn’t have to tend the fields when it rained; instead, he could read. 

3) Ou. Ku gua. Luo bo. Da bai cai. Xiao bai cai. Suan tai. Dong gua. Pin yin is the nest of the second generation.

4) My family is from mainland China (write simplified) but my Chinese school was Taiwanese (taught traditional) and now I am ? (forgot everything)

5)恭喜發財红包拿来