Creative projects
Writing
I have several ongoing writing projects in both poetry and prose. My poems have been published in Plenitude Magazine, PRISM International, Cloud Lake Literary and Sam-Fifty-Four, and my short stories have twice been longlisted in the CBC Literary Prizes Contest. My poem ‘Consider the Peony’ will appear in the 2022 edition of the Best Canadian Poetry collection. I am currently editing my novella titled ‘Elegy for Daji’ which is a radical feminist retelling of Shang dynasty Chinese mythology, with the goal of publication. I am a fantasy writer at heart. Some of my most beloved recurring motifs – the sublime agonies of feminine yearning, the aromas in the city of Wuhan, the pure animal magnetism of serpents and fish, and going insane. Like Nabokov, I hope to write ecstatically.
Art
Though my training included variety of mediums such as watercolour, pencil, and ink, recently I work almost exclusively in acrylics. I am inspired by the imaginative and narratively rich interplay between traditional still life and wildlife realism, which is explored in my collection ‘A Feast for Kingfishers’. Many of my landscapes, though expressed through traditional mediums, take on a graphic approach and incorporate Asiatic symbolic imagery such as bamboo, cranes, and peonies as homage to my cultural heritage. I am stylistically focused on bold colour play and dynamically compelling composition to create midrange ready-for-display pieces. My formative training was with Danny Han Lin Chen in my hometown of Richmond, and I currently sell and display my work under the studio title Brushes for Hummingbirds.
