What pivotal moments or experiences led you to become the multidisciplinary artist you are today?

My artistic awakening began in a family steeped in aesthetics. At 15, I moved alone to the U.S., where language barriers and loneliness drove me to seek refuge in the art studio. Every day after school, I painted until nightfall. My art teacher, Mr. Ditze, never criticized my work—instead, he encouraged me to compete. When my watercolor Anchor won the Milwaukee Art Museum Gold Key Award, I realized: Fragility can be strength. Though I studied graphic design in college, I resisted its commercial constraints until my junior year, when I transformed 26 moves across countries into the mixed-media collage series Lost and Found. This project became my visual poetry of displacement—the moment I truly found my voice.

In your statement, you mentioned your explorations being presented through surreal, metaphor-rich narratives that bridge personal history and universal human experience. Could you elaborate on these approaches and how you developed these visual interpretation methods?

Surrealism, for me, is the manifestation of the subconscious. When creating Vagabondage, I simulated rain in my bathroom with a spray bottle, photographing myself under a yellow umbrella. But the final painting’s umbrella morphed into a fragile pact between the wanderer and the world—its ribs like bones, its canopy translucent as cicada wings. This transformation distilled personal memories: boarding school bunk beds, airport transfer lounges, peeling wallpaper in rented rooms. When viewers say, “This umbrella is my loneliness,” it echoes Jung’s collective unconscious—proof that individual wounds are humanity’s birthmarks.

Your work delves conceptually into the interplay between cultural identity, displacement, and resilience. Can you describe how you translate complex concepts into engaging artistic experiences for your audience?

Cultural symbols are my cipher. In Lost and Found, I reimagined WWII radio operators’ giant ears—once vital, now obsolete—as mechanical listening devices. Their metallic yellow hue, inspired by my nostalgia for “Chinese yellow,” unexpectedly resonated with immigrants who saw their hometown monsoons in the color. Cultural identity isn’t static; it fractures in displacement and reassembles through shared echoes. Vagabondage’s umbrella, initially a private symbol, became a collective metaphor—a chromatic bridge between personal and universal longing.

Can you tell us more about your process of balancing digital precision with traditional techniques, prioritising emotional resonance and cultural nuance?

Digital tools are scalpels; traditional mediums are breath. For Vagabondage, I first roughed out chaotic rain with oil pastels, then refined the umbrella’s grid-like ribs digitally. The clash of textures mirrors the wanderer’s psyche—craving order yet fearing confinement. In Lost and Found, I layered digitally printed WWII photos with hand-torn foam board edges, their friction embodying memory’s inherent roughness. Precision and imperfection coexist, much like ink-wash flourishes and pixel-perfect vectors.

What can you tell us about the series of mixed-media collages, Lost and Found? What is the framework that gave life to the visual narrative and composition of the series?

Twenty-six moves across China, the U.S., and the U.K. made me a “professional nomad.” Lost and Found draws from WWII radio operators who guarded nations with giant ears, only to be discarded postwar. I used soft blue, cream, and blush-dyed papers, rolling textured patterns reminiscent of aged photographs. Foam board’s honeycomb structure was cut into geometric blocks, forming mechanical ears; sponges dabbed with watercolor created dawn-like gradients. Seamless layers and precise cuts transformed humble materials into elegant meditations on belonging. The series whispers: Home isn’t a fixed coordinate—it’s the light we piece together from fragments.

One of your oil paintings, called Vagabondage, reflects on rootlessness, using a yellow umbrella as a symbol of fragile shelter amid emotional storms. What kind of emotional or intellectual journey do you hope your audience experiences when interacting with your painting?

I want viewers to first be struck by the umbrella’s vividness, then notice the translucent figure curled beneath it. A Ukrainian refugee once wrote: “I carried this yellow umbrella from Kyiv to Berlin.” This mirrors Walter Benjamin’s “aura”—art only lives when witnessed. I don’t seek to explain rootlessness, only to build a bridge where loneliness resonates. If someone whispers, “I can feel these emotions,” the work has served its purpose.

One aspect of your practice is the design of art education workshops for a London children’s studio, fostering creativity through hands-on learning. How do you feel this experience correlates and strengthens your own practice? How do you feel your participants have responded to your work?

At a commercial London studio, I assisted children in assembly-line crafts: resin-filled “fluid bears,” pixel art by numbers. It felt stifling—until a girl defiantly mixed black and pink resin into a murky whirlpool, declaring, “My bear needs a storm.” Her rebellion sparked Vagabondage’s tempest. Later, in the online exhibition Safe House or Jail?, viewers zoomed into intentionally skewed crosshatching—flaws that echoed children’s “mistakes” in pixel grids. Perfection is sterile; imperfections are proof of life.

Do you have any advice for artists who wish to incorporate workshops within their practice?

Don’t preach. When a child carved “SORRY” into a birthday candle, saying flames would “burn the words away,” I stole the gesture for Lost and Found’s charred motifs. Workshops aren’t pulpits—they’re treasure hunts for raw humanity. Rules exist to be bent; your job is to smuggle truth through the cracks.

Art and artists play various roles in the fabric of contemporary society. How do you see artistic practices advancing sustainability and social consciousness?

Dadaists shattered elitist art in Zurich’s Cabaret Voltaire; today, we must pry open cracks in algorithmic hegemony. Lost and Found’s obsolete radio ears ask: Who listens in the AI age? When viewers encounter Vagabondage, they are often struck by its intricate details and raw emotional intensity—the umbrella’s fragile structure mirroring their own unspoken vulnerabilities. Art won’t overthrow systems, but it amplifies silenced voices, turning whispers into roars.

What message or call to action would you like to share with our readers?

Visit a café showing student art. Buy a postcard. Stand before Vagabondage and say, “I see you.” Every ungilded gaze keeps art alive. We creators are bridge-builders for the lonely—even rickety bridges matter if someone crosses.

Know more about the artist here.

Cover image:

Lost and Found, Collage by Yiqi Zhao.

All images courtesy of  Yiqi Zhao.