Client: Texas Monthly
Art Director: Jenn Hair Tompkins
Category: Editorial
Created for Texas Monthly’s August Issue, on how rural school districts are facing financial ruin and gradually being worn away.
Client: The New York Times Magazine
Art Director: Victoria Escobar
Category: Editorial
A juxtaposition of climate extremes for NYT Magazine’s California issue. It was important to emphasize how the devastating effects of both flooding and drought, thunderstorms and dust storms have become frequent occurrences upon the same locations.
Category: Children’s literature
A night scene of a constellation twinkling over the observatories on Mauna Kea.
Category: Personal work
There’s a valley where the wisps of clouds passing overhead are captured in the reflection of a shallow river bed. The wind and the river work together within this isolated yet protected dimension to slowly gather and coax the wisps into the form of creatures - cormorants, lizards, beetles, sometimes even yaks. The maturation of each infant form is helped along by daily visits from the village children who feed them fresh fish. After a few months the cloud creatures are eventually strong enough to break the surface of the river bed and complete their passage over the mountain range.
Category: Personal work
Personal work inspired by a summer stroll through the Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Client: KTF Press
Category: Book Cover
Illustration and hand-lettering for Tamice Spencer-Helm’s new memoir, “Faith Unleavened”, published by KTF Press. The author felt it was important to include symbolic objects from her life as she navigated the wilderness of white evangelicalism - peppermints and Newports, tequila shots with communion cups, as well as scenes from the Black Lives Matter protests and Trayvon Martin’s shoes.
Client: The Washington Post
Art Director: Audrey Valbuena
Category: Editorial
Created for a piece titled, “What counts as an American name in a changing nation?” where readers reflected on their experiences in America with “un-American” names.
Lucky Tigers
Medium: Sumi ink on watercolor paper
Category: Personal work
Year: 2022
Lucky Rabbits
Medium: Acrylic Ink on drawing paper
Category: Personal work
Year: 2023
Category: Children’s literature
Character explorations on a moonbeam’s adventures under the sea
Client: Think!Chinatown
Medium: Mixed media, xuan paper, bamboo
Year: 2023
Client: The New York Times Magazine
Art Direction: Annie Jen
Category: Editorial
On Denis Villeneuve’s journey as a director and his vision for the film Dune.
Client: Arnoldia
Art Director: Lou Thorne at Point Five
Category: Editorial
Created for Arnoldia on the night life of trees.
Client: The New York Times
Art Director: Catherine Gilmore-Barnes
Category: Editorial
Created for The New York Times Book Review on “Have You Eaten Yet?” by Cheuk Kwan, which traces a diaspora around the world through Chinese restaurants owned and operated by immigrant families.
Client: The New Yorker
Art Director: Sebit Min
Category: Editorial
An illustration for a book review on the re-release of Ursula K. LeGuin’s novel, “The Left Hand of Darkness”.
Category: Personal Work
An exploration on the perspective of a bat hunting at night.
Category: Personal work
A personal work that reflects on the “twisties”, a term that gymnasts use to describe a sense of disorientation in the air and one aspect of why Simone Biles bowed out of one of her 2020 Olympics competitions.
Category: Children’s literature
A personal series that follows the course of a little girl’s day dream and adventure on a warm spring day.
Category: Personal work
Inspired by a quote by John Muir - “The clearest way into the universe is through a forest wilderness.”
Client: The Atavist Magazine
Art director: Ed Johnson
Category: Editorial
Created for a short story by Christina Lalanne published in Atavist Magazine. The story follows the journey of a couple who discovers old love letters when they move into an historical home in San Francisco.
Client: The New York Times Book Review
Art Director: Jim Cooke
Category: Editorial
Created for a book review on Ha Jin’s novel, “A Song Everlasting”, where a Chinese opera singer strives to find his creative freedom in America.
Category: Editorial
For an unpublished assignment about how Covid has impacted women’s career journeys in disparate ways.
I worked with KTF Press to develop artwork for their podcast, “Shake The Dust”, which features conversations around leaving colonized faith for the Kingdom of God. The central theme for the artwork is a landscape undergoing a dramatic and roiling transformation but with warm and invitational tones.
Client: KTF Press
Category: Editorial
An unpublished cover about the concept of “credit”, symbolized by a meteor shower - an empowering but potentially catastrophic sight.
Client: New York Times
Art Director: Michael Houtz
Category: Editorial
On how the Covid pandemic has forced couples to reckon with their relationships. In order to capture a couple engaged in an honest and intimate moment, I referenced the work of the Norwegian sculptor, Gustav Vigeland.
Client: The Washington Post Magazine.
Art Director: Clare Ramirez
Category: Editorial
On how, in spite of the growing “me too” movement, sexual assault among boys is overlooked and dismissed, often occurring as a form of hazing within team sports.
Client: The California Sunday Magazine
Art Direction: Leo Jung
Category: Editorial
A series about Army Lieutenant Clint Lorance who was convicted of the murder of two Afghan civilians. He became a symbolic figure celebrated by Fox News and was eventually pardoned by President Trump.
I was asked to create an animated video for Chinatown Arts Week and their annual Art of Storytelling event. The illustrations accompanied a recorded interview of Nancy Sing-Bock telling her daughter about her grandfather, An Van Sing, who immigrated to New York from Shanghai, China after WWII, and made a home in New York’s Lower East Side.
Client: Think!Chinatown | Chinatown Arts Week 2020
Category: Personal work
A summer night after a thunderstorm in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
Client: New York Times
Art Director: Andrew Sondern
Category: Editorial
“The encroaching darkness of winter rides in with a rising wave of infection and death. But now it appears we can invest real hope in the coming coronavirus vaccines. After the solstice, the days get longer.”
Category: Children’s literature
Selected illustrations from The Healer, a short story I wrote and illustrated about a dying king and a traveler who attempts to heal him.