In late 2022, I was honoured to receive the Professional Category Award at the World Illustration Awards (WIA), presented by the Association of Illustrators — one of the most prestigious recognitions in the international illustration industry.
The winning work was a cover illustration created for Shanghairen (上海人), a Shanghai-based cultural lifestyle magazine with a reputation for celebrating sophisticated urban culture and the arts. The brief invited me to create an image that felt both rooted in Chinese visual tradition and genuinely contemporary — a balance that sits at the heart of much of my practice.
The resulting illustration drew on classical compositional principles — layered planes, restrained colour, a certain ceremonial stillness — while opening outward to include modern references and a quietly playful sensibility. The cover had to work as both standalone art and as the face of an editorial identity: intimate enough to hold in your hands on a Shanghai street, expansive enough to contain the city it represents.
Receiving the WIA Professional Award was deeply meaningful — recognition not just of a single image but of the years spent finding a visual language that moves between two worlds. I am grateful to the AOI jury and to the Shanghairen team for trusting me with this commission.