Sara is an illustrator located in the Bay Area. She graduated from the Communication Design program at Washington University in St. Louis, and is obsessed with teasing out and amplifying the emotional undertones of stories big and small.
Image courtesy of artist.
Wong is one of the participating artists for the ON/OFF Grid art exhibition (April 6 - June 2) at the Gene Siskel Film Center in conjunction with the FAAIM 23rd Annual Asian American Showcase which runs April 6 through April 18th, 2018. We asked her a few questions about her work and artistic practice!
Image courtesy of artist.
1. Does your identity or personal story inform your work? Who/what inspires you?
As a biracial but white-passing artist I would say identity, and the feeling of belonging//not belonging shows up in my personal work, along with physicality versus emotionality. I care more about what's hidden, unspoken, and how I can warp a visual world to truly reflect that. In my client work I've gotten a lot of the more difficult stories about women's rights, particularly violence against women and women's control over their bodies, and I think my proclivity for complex, tangled feelings at odds with physicality is a part of that.
"Kesha" Image courtesy of artist.
2. What do you think about AI?
I think about this all the time. It's fascinating to try and find the line between human and not-human—if an AI could think and act and grow in the same way as a human being, who's to say a constructed replica of a person isn't the same as a person? Or even, the same as THE particular person. It feels a lot like trying to get to the truth of being human, or to the truth of anything original versus a mechanical copy. Obviously human versus AI is the ultimate extension of that exploration, but I think it also brings up interesting questions about how genuine even the elements of human life can be, like memories (which are, if you will, kind of the artificial copies of your life that we create for ourselves). Can, or can we not, trust those versions? Does that trust change whether we can trust ourselves?
"Moonlight" Image courtesy of artist.
3. What are you working on right now?
I just worked with NPR to develop illustrations for the 4th season of the podcast, Invisibilia, so now that that project has been wrapped I am returning to a Cormac McCarthy book (this time, The Road) which I'll draw a cover for, just for fun. This has become a sort of tradition for me as I find it helps restart my creativity.
See more of Sara Wong's work on saraarielwong.com // Instagram @saraarielwong // Join us at the ON/OFF Grid art exhibition running Friday, April 6, 2018 - June 2, 2018.