A selection of recent illustrations by Brooklyn, New York based artist Dadu Shin (previously featured here). After a long time working digitally, Shin’s recent works are drawn with a ballpoint pen, embracing the creative freedom to make art for himself as opposed to the parameters of commercial work. “I’ve found inspiration in my own life and in what makes me who I am, whether it’s something as complicated as my Asian-American heritage, my upbringing, my neurosis, or something ‘as simple as my age, my social life, my likes and dislikes, etc. For the most part, I try to create a weird, melancholic feeling in my work’, he explains. “It’s both an aesthetic choice and a representation of how I’ve been thinking about things lately.”
“The world may be pretty and beautiful and wholesome, but the world is also most definitely disturbing and weird. As someone who is not the most stable when it comes to anxiety, I would say I see a lot of things through prism of that weirdness. I like when my work feels weird and melancholy because it’s an acknowledgment and a reminder that those feelings exist. It’s almost therapeutic in the sense that when that work is acknowledged, it reminds us that “There’s nothing wrong with feeling sad and in a bad mood – we all feel those things. I’m just trying to remember the beautiful and healthy parts too.”
See more from Dadu Shin below!
