Artist Statement

Jiaying Guan, an animator based in Beijing and Chicago. She is interested in creating a kind of surreal state with her films and paintings. Something that is between a dream, and a normal moment in the day to day life, she often has her characters negotiating a situation with an authority figure. They are trying to be heard seen, but they are also wanting to hide from visibility. The activity of drawing for is how she enters her aesthetic world, the Sumi ink, or charcoal, or watercolors are improvisational tools for her, she draws or paints in a slow-motion world, where the ideas come to her as she works.

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