2018

Illustrated in Procreate and Photoshop. Pages arranged in Photoshop.

This is a six-page illustration from collaborative class work with Lift Education in New Zealand for their upcoming student magazine called School Journal. Based on the script they provided me, I made an illustration corresponding to the content. My key roles for this project were character design, background design, and page arrangement based on my deep research of the targeted audience (children aged eight to nine years old), New Zealand sports, diverse culture, and edible bugs.

This is an illustration based on my museum art therapy experience based on the practice called Witness Writing, developed by Pat Allen from the active imagination work of C.G. Jung.

In the Art Institute of Chicago, I chose Monet’s painting called Cliff Walk at Pourville, and started a conversation with the figure on the left wearing a pale-yellow hat with a ribbon in my imagination. Even though all of this happened in my head, I felt like I talked to a therapist, but in reality, the therapist was me. This special experience suggested to me the strength of self-directed art therapy practice in museums.

Future Entomologists

2018

33 x 4 in

Illustrated in Procreate and Photoshop, Printed on paper

This is a mini-comic book about a common misunderstanding of Entomology, the scientific study of insects.

Many commercial Forensic movies and TV shows have shown us, scientists, figuring out the estimated time of murder by observing insects on dead bodies. Because of this, many people, including me, thought insects can tell scientists the time of murder. But actually, the presence of different kinds of insects on dead bodies tells us the length of time a body has been at that location.

Through this mini-comic book, I wanted to convey information to people in a more accessible way with my illustration.

This comic book is based on the interview I had with Dean and Joyce at The Mather, a nursing home in Evanston, Illinois. Even though I was there to ask them questions about their lives and to listen to them, I ended up learning precious life experiences from them. Therefore, I decided to make a comic book based on what I learned from this interview and showed it to my class and friends. I was amazed at how my comic book created empathy to not only Dean, Joyce, and me, but also to the readers.

“I will store my homes in the letter of ‘YOU’, and keep getting reminded of what I’ve achieved from my communities.”

In this illustration, there are three letters: Y, O, and U. Those letters are in the shape of houses. For me, “Home” is where I find comfort, also a place that gives me anxiety. It is a place where I build my identities. Since home refers to the society that people live in and everyone sees society in different ways, talking about home ultimately leads to a conversation about social injustice starting from a casual conversation.

There are two art therapy workshops I made with this illustration.

Please check them out!

SEND A POSTCARD TO YOUR COMMUNITY

Y.O.U COLORING PAGE

Illustrated in Procreate, Photoshop

Animated in After Effects

Through this moving satire illustration, I tried to point out how Facebook has earned its reputation as a hotspot for internet hackers, as well as being notorious for allowing third parties the permission to gather data about its users.

2016

11 x 11 in each

Pencil on paper

This is a letter consisting of drawings that I wrote to myself in the past, as I struggled with different things and wished for advice from myself from the future.

If I could talk to myself in the past, I would say: “Don’t worry, what you are doing is right.”

“Sumin, what would you want to be?”

This is a question I always heard from others and myself as well. Sometimes, I felt useless as I did not have a clear answer for it.

However, in my first Art Therapy class, I realized that I was always trying to find the answer based on my job choices, not what kind of person that I wanted to be. At last, I found the answer: I want to be a happy person who can share the happiness with others.

I printed this mini comic book multiple times and gave them to people who seemed worried about their career choices to share my realization.

Relief print on paper, Illustrated in Procreate

In the spring semester of 2017, spring came to Chicago. It was my second semester in my new school and was my first spring in Chicago. By then, I had many good friends, knew where to go for snacks, could distinguish how to pronounce “fork” and “pork” correctly, and no longer got lost on campus. Most of all, I was so grateful for my life in Chicago. It was the first time I felt spring in my heart.

Acrylic on canvas