These two pieces got into the Society of Illustrators 65 Exhibition under Editorial thanks to the jury of my peers. I haven't really entered into many competitions, so it was a really nice surprise to be recognized. Many thanks to my art directors Ed Johnson at Foreign Affairs and Claire Merchlinsky at The New York Times. The 1st one accompanied a piece by Jeff Yang about Asian American heroes in media representation, but for the main figure I made it a portrait of a family friend Yueh Chien, who went missing in the summer of 2021. As a way of processing her disappearance, I wanted everyone in the world to look at her face because at the time I felt like she wasn't being searched for hard enough. The 2nd one is for a book review centered around Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang, who was purged from power and public life because he was sympathetic to student protestors during the Tiananmen crisis. He served for 2 years as leader of the CCP and General Secretary and was succeeded by Jiang Zemin, who passed away today.
