Strangers in Japan

This series was created during a one month artist residency in Itoshima, Japan. I originally planned to interview local people and develop a small documentary drawing project about the town.
But because I don’t speak Japanese, most encounters happened without much conversation. Instead, I began drawing the people and small moments I observed around me.
These drawings became a quiet visual diary of brief encounters, and a reminder that human connection even in its simplest form, is what often drives my work.

Technique: ink & GouacheYear: 2025

Personal Art Projects

I always try to maintain a creative spirit and continue to manually explore techniques and formats. The projects I present here might seem like small side projects, but these non-commercial personal endeavors are necessary to my practice, and essential to my imagination and innovative spirit. These projects always start as a sort of a game: a personal diary, or endless obsessive lists that attempt to capture something about my being and my view of the world. They serve as a therapy for my hectic mind, and inform my commissioned illustrations as well.