Jason Chuang is the winner of the AOI Members Award.
About the Project
These pieces were personal work done during the lockdown period in London. My life in lockdown seemed to merge into an endless loop. Emancipating ideas and directing my emotions out from my body into my drawings, has been both a meditative and healing condolence.
Brief
With these works, I tried to portray the feelings of being trapped indoors, and how ‘window watching’ has become my everyday norm. When I am feeling claustrophobic, the window are my connection to the outside world, as well as a stage for me to project narratives played out inside my head.
Research
I looked into classic painter like Edward Hopper and Hiroshinge, as well as Freud’s study on the self, Buddhist teaching about ego and the mind
Process
I jotted down ideas relating to my emotions on my visual diaries first, then develop them into fully realised illustrations or gifs later on
Challenges
Trying to stay away from the Cliche depiction of ‘trap-ness’, ‘loneliness’ and coming up with visuals that are fresh and inventive
Insights
From this project I learnt that when I am down or feeling sad I was not the only one feeling like this in the world, everybody feels the same in one way or another. Creating these pieces have helped me through some confusing times and people have reached out to me saying how much they resonate with the pieces, which is a beautiful experience to have for me as an artist.
Distractions
Worked on a collective Graphic Novel called ‘Sanitiser on Toast’ with a group of friends, binge watch series like ‘Lost’ and ‘The OA’
Numbers
Most of the work from the series were done very intuitively, some of them went through a series of thumb-nailing, trial and errors to come to the final resolution
Advice
Stay true to yourself, don’t follow trends, be brave, and give yourself more credit for what you do
Future
To have my own graphic novel published one day, and to see my story/ film on the big screen
Dream Commission
To be involved in a project with my favourite writer / film makers Zal Batmanglij and Brit Marling, I admire everything that they do, every little details and dialogues are done with intention, and they produce the most mind bending/ poetic stories!
Favourite Thing to Draw
Weird faces, wings, animal and human hybird
Workspace
I work from home at the moment on a tiny desk, looking to get a biggest desk and start painting soon
Thanks
It means a lot for me to have won with my personal project, as I did it solely for the purpose of pleasing no one else but myself. There are a few experimental pieces in there too, and I feel like it’s a good validation to my work ethic of constantly challenging myself and pushing my boundaries, which I am definitely going to continue doing in the future!