about

Hi there! I'm Joanna Liang (she/her), a multidisciplinary visual artist who also writes poetry. My artistic practice encompasses many mediums including bookmaking, illustration, photography, sculpture, sequential art, and poetry. I'm currently pursuing my BFA in Visual Arts and a Minor in Art + Text at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design, on the unceded territories of the xwmƏ0kwƏýƏm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. I love petting my cat, listening to the rain, and planting new seeds in my garden.I’ve found the book medium to be such a wonderful meeting place for all the multitudes my art practice contains as it can include the still photograph and sequential illustration, be a tangible sculpture, and hold the poetic written word. They are stories you can hold and feel with your hands, with the ability to be personal and communal all at once. My work often expresses longing for unknown futures while acknowledging the feelings of grief and helplessness of not knowing how to get there, especially in regards to the climate crisis. I am also particularly fond of working with human-made found objects and gathered natural materials.

email me at: [email protected]

here's a 'lil gallery view sampler of some of my work!:

book arts

Sunlight is moonlight (2023)

Photography and poetry. Coptic bound book, 39 pages.

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I sight freeze (2023)

Translucent sheets of paper and plastic, black ink pen, gift box, and poetry. Box book, 54 pages.

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Last Name (2023)

4-colour risograph printed cover, digitally printed pages, illustration and poetry. Saddle stitch binding, 25 pages.

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Hazelnuts grow on trees (2022)

Photography, gathered plant material (hazelnut shells, cedar bark, corn husks), and poetry. Case bound book, 31 pages.

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all over (2023)

2-colour risograph printed on cream and white paper, illustration. 'One-page' zine, 6 pages.

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2 dreams about disaster (2022)

Watercolour and poetry. Accordion book, 37 pages.

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photography

a life(,) you know(?) (2022)

13.5” x 9.2” Digital photography series of 20

A series dedicated to intimacy. Found in community gardens, golden light, and human beings.

of yellow soap and whiteness (2019)

Digital photography series of 13

Inspired by a quote from The Lover by Marguerite Duras: “the delicious smell of wet earth after a storm, enough to make you wild with delight, especially when it’s mixed with the other, the smell of yellow soap […] of whiteness” (61). It’s about a relationship that takes too much, until it ends and the memory of it is attempted to be scrubbed clean. Everything is washed off but the scent still lingers.

jerry in the face of the world (2022)

50" x 27.7" Digital photography

Inspired by the cool kid on the hill.

Space out of Time (2022)

Digital photography series of 10

Space out of Time is about documenting time that passes without your notice. Spacing out, losing awareness, liminal spaces, compacted into an image through long exposure photography.

Unwanted (2020)

Digital photography series of 13

Unwanted explores the often arbitrary nature of classifying a plant as a "weed". Weeds are subjective; by definition, they are just plants one does not want somewhere. Using static and blurring effects to distort the images, I’ve drawn more attention to the rebelliousness, resilience, and persistence of these plants.

War-torn (2019)

Digital photography series of 15

War-torn is about grieving places, trees, and animals that disappear devastatingly quickly.

Analogue photography

Black and white / colour film

Analogue photography work from 2021 - 2022.

illustration

Digital illustration

Illustrated with Adobe Photoshop / Clip Studio Paint

Digital illustration work from 2019-2023.

Design

Illustrated in Clip Studio Paint / Designed and illustrated in Adobe Illustrator

Comics

Illustrated with Adobe Photoshop

Homemade Seeds (2023):

Citrus Clementine (2023):

All Over (2023): (see final printed book here)

Last Name (2023): (see final printed book here)

Printmaking

Lino and intaglio

Traditional media

Acrylic, gouache, chalk pastel

Arcrylic/Gouache paintings:

home by heart series (2019). Chalk pastel and ballpoint pen:

other work

sculpture & mixed media

What Remains (2021)

Sculptures and video

This series of work is about memory and the passage of time. Candles are lit for birthdays and funerals, for joy and sorrow.
The glowing candles parallel how people glow bright, burn out, and how even in their absence will leave something behind.

mourning celebration

Nests series: Flee the Nest (2020)

Old wood planks, eggshells, dried plant material (bindweed, ivy, bramble), paper and ink, pencil, fork, serrated metal, broken ceramic, broken seashell, sharp rocks, acrylic paint

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Nests series: build a home (2020)

Dried plant material (grass, moss, birch bark), fabric, tinfoil, old pen, feathers, eggshells, dried acrylic paint, cat hair, paper and ink, pebbles

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Fruitless longing (2020)

Dried apples and oranges, string lights, round mirror

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please return (2020)

Disassembled clock, pieces from a 2019 planner, hot glue waves, seashell, sequins, broken glass, acrylic paint, fishing line

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Rediscovery (2019-2020)

Acrylic paint, dried flora, fishing line, polyester lace curtain over cotton and polyester curtain

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animation

Animated videos

Animation work from 2020-2024. See more on my Youtube.

poetry

Last Name / First Name (最后的名字)I paid respects to a ghost I did not know
Bowed once, twice,
thrice with my cat in my arms
I didn’t know my last name had a memorial, a temple,
a place for last names to rest within four blue walls
I watched indecisively as my father spilled a trail of rice wine
kitchen-counter-turned-altar
The fragrance of it filling the air ,
As they set off firecrackers inside the small screen of my last name’s phone
alternate / universesWhat’s the difference between a firecracker and a firework
Gunpowder combusting outside my house in celebration for Halloween night
The lights in the phone like a flare
I was made aware of the distance between myself and
the four blue walls in space and time and knowing
As the fireworks lagged /hes itate d andCRACKED
Bursting in false-time, physics laws unraveling
as I heard the sound before the light7:33pm 2022, 31, Oct.

I feel like I’m losing something
Or losing someone
I look at her
5 years younger
And I say I don’t think I know you anymore
And she reaches out to me
With a nonexistent hand touches my face and says
It’s okay
I want to have a conversation with the mirror
Because I think she who lives in there right now is my best and only friend
I’ve never felt so alone yet so surrounded by so many iterations of myself
My body, the image of my body
Superimposed over itself so many times
That I can’t meet the eye of my mirror
I can’t recognize the face of my graduating self
But I remember the wink
And the movement
And the going out the doors
(Jun.13,2021 1:52am)

an invitation to anythingOpen the door and
let everything in
Every terrible feeling track muddy footprints
over the blank floors
Every stranger emotion slip by you when you
answer the door looking around for who
knocked
And let them tear down curtains and knock over lamps behind you
Leave the door open
Throw out the key
Do not be tempted into locking that one
entrance you have
To life
Do not shatter your windows to feel wind on
your face
Open the door
(Feb. 27,2020 (12:50)

How, exactly
Does the world end?
Not
With a bang
But just another everyday feeling
The oddness of circumstance
And chance?
Unpredictable
And
Suffocatingly normal
A reality too unreal for the mind to accept
A fiction so unworldly it’s a story the heart won’t listen to
Is this how the world ends?
With the dire edges of transition
Crumbling beneath the Earth
In a silent upheaval
So unforgiving
The world is violently forced into change
Is this how the world ends?
With the burning feeling of something new
about to tear its way into
A new beginning?
(Mar. 17,2020 it’s the infinite ending of the world)

How, exactly
Does the world end?
Not
With a bang
But just another everyday feeling
The oddness of circumstance
And chance?
Unpredictable
And
Suffocatingly normal
A reality too unreal for the mind to accept
A fiction so unworldly it’s a story the heart won’t listen to
Is this how the world ends?
With the dire edges of transition
Crumbling beneath the Earth
In a silent upheaval
So unforgiving
The world is violently forced into change
Is this how the world ends?
With the burning feeling of something new
about to tear its way into
A new beginning?
(Mar. 17,2020 it’s the infinite ending of the world)

Title

Illustrated in Clip Studio Paint / Designed and illustrated in Adobe Illustrator

sculpture and mixed media

sculpture & mixed media

animation & video

animation

poetry

poetry