I think I became more fearless facing negative emotions because I know through drawing, they will melt into the air and become color and pencil strokes that I can hug and keep.
Meicheng Chi
The following interview forms part of a series where I invite contemporary artists to each reflect on their personal history, meaning, and philosophy, and how those are embedded throughout their creative process.
This week I talk to Meicheng Chi, a Chinese designer currently based in New York who graduated from Rhode Island School of Design in 2022.
Your illustration projects ‘At Night’ and ‘Looking out of the window on a train’ have a strikingly different, darker aesthetic and overall energy from your more recent works. What was the catalyst for such a shift?
For me, drawing is the most spontaneous and genuine way to express myself and to introduce myself, so my drawings always accurately reflect my state at the moment. I did these two series when I was 18 and during that year I was having depression. Drawing became and exit for my emotions, and a separate space for me to vent my negative feelings. I felt thankful to find an exit for the abstract and hazy feelings that were hard to be described with concrete words. I felt like sitting on a train aiming nowhere. My emotions were flying out of the window. After completing almost 20 drawings in 3 weeks, I suddenly felt empty and tranquil inside and lost the strong depression which gave me pain but also a motive to draw. That was when I realized I can also express this ‘emotionless’ feeling and I did the ‘At Night’ series which was more quiet and less talkative.
I started to use color one year later when I met people who gave me so much warmth and love and cured me a lot. Being cured by love is and extremely lucky thing which gave me the courage to laugh, to experience, to take in and to give, and to continue running on an endless road no matter where it leads to. Walking out of depression made me more sensitive to beautiful and warm feelings. I started to record strong or blurry emotions which I sometimes don’t know how to manage. Color pencil drawings capture the sensation and anticipation of looking forward to romantic moment, my mood swings, and also bonds between people.
Which artists and figures have inspired you in your approach to art?
I was inspired by Egon Schiele’s emotional and poetic pencil strokes a lot. I love how he observed the interior space and figures but turned them into his own language that evoked his own connections with them. I was also inspired by Henry Matisse and David Hockney in the way they use color fearlessly and even unreasonable sometimes, which to me is the most attractive part of drawing—being unreasonable. I also admire Chinese artist Wang Yuping in how genuine he is when depicting the Beijing city or just a bowl of porridge for breakfast. I think the most important thing in creating art is to be genuine.
More importantly, I think my parents and my little sister inspired me a lot not only in my approach to art, but also in always letting me know how art should be a fearless and free experience since I was a kid. All the painting albums they bought and all the snowy nights when we casually sketch each other at home were the most inspiring and the warmest memory for me.
What do you want to reveal with your works?
I find it the easiest to introduce myself through my work. Sometimes there is too much I want to talk about, but I don’t know how to. It is drawing that speaks those words for me. Sometimes I want to run away and stay quiet, drawing can also convey that quietness. Many people say my work feels soft, but I do think there are strong emotions gushing out behind the fog with a little sadness and a little energy.
Sometimes I use colored pencils as a way of depicting my half-awake memories. For me, half-awake memories are always the most vivid and drawing is like sleep talk. The textures I can create with colored pencils using different strength and different speed always tell different stories, creating the images of my sleep with fluidity and firmness. Sometimes I cure myself during the process of drawing instead of wanting to express or reveal anything. It’s like a conversation with myself and it is like sleep talking.
Is there a sense of how your artistic process influences your way of experiencing the world, just as it might influence the other way around?
I think I became more fearless facing negative emotions because I know through drawing, they will melt into the air and become color and pencil strokes that I can hug and keep. It also makes me more sensitive to abstract feelings and mood swings that I feel passionate about recording on the paper.
In his book ‘No Man is an Island’, Thomas Merton wrote, “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” How does this resonate with you?
Through art, I’m constantly exploring and recording my feelings and myself. It all started from my own desire to express, but there is always surprise during the process that enables me to learn more about myself. It feels like the unexpected but attractive petrichor you get after a pouring day. Sometimes the petrichor also make things more blurry and I guess that’s when I might feel lost. Once in a while I feel I don’t know myself that well, but it’s still an enjoyable experience to feel the blurriness and to not make everything logical and clear.
In a world where failure was impossible, how might your art be different?
For me, drawing is a spontaneous behaviour that I enjoy, so I have never considered the concept of success or failure. I guess when I consider art as a self expression and separate art from self accomplishment, success or failure is not relevant to the creative experience.
See more of Meicheng Chi’s works and keep up to date with upcoming exhibitions: Instagram
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