65 MENGJIE WANG

Mengjie Wang

Mengjie Wang is an illustrator from China, and a current Master of Arts student at Kingston University in the UK. She has been a “wild” illustrator since 2017 and has a diverse style of illustrations in her portfolio.

Biography

I majored in environmental design in college. If I followed my previous life plan, I would have probably become an interior designer. For me, interior design is to create in a fixed space, but the scope of illustration is unlimited. No matter where I am, I can use all tools and draw freely without restrictions. I was intoxicated with the feeling of illustration, so I quit my job and went to London to study illustration. For me, rich colours and a sense of story are a principle of my creations. I hope to make everything more interesting, because paintings and illustrations can be a response to what is around you. I mainly use procreate for my illustrations. Its advantage is that it is portable and can remind me not to be lazy at any time; but I like to superimpose different textures on my pictures and pursue subtle changes.

I don’t like to call myself an independent illustrator. I prefer to call myself a wild illustrator, as I hope my creations and inspiration can grow like plants. Instead of asking myself to maintain a certain style of painting, I try different ways of expression to stimulate my creative activity. I also try to keep my own picture features throughout different styles of painting, such as “big ears”. I find inspiration from photography, film works, and contemporary art works. Sometimes social news is also a good choice. I avoid looking at too much work from the same illustrator, because I feel that it is easy to tend to other people’s style and lose myself.

mengjiewang1996.wixsite.com/artwork

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LOOKING FOR A CLOUD

DANCE ROSE

Mengjie’s project “Women’s Appearance Anxiety” reflects the pressure that women experience when aiming to resemble stringently defined expectations of a beautiful body image. Mirrors are apparent in every image to demonstrate self-reflection and the negative thoughts that arise when one is unhappy with their image. It was short listed for the 2021 World of Illustration Awards under the ‘Editorial’ category for New Talent.

Women’s Appearance Anxiety

by Mengjie Wang

In recent years, both film & TV productions and online advertisements have presented a relatively single idea of beauty. These ideas can cause female’s to have anxiety related to their appearance. I actually did a survey and discovered that most women look in the mirror and think to themselves: “I am so fat” or “This is a big sore in my face”; they are not confident with their own appearance. This shows that the mirror acts as a medium of selfexamination for women to some extent. So I chose to use the mirror as a medium to express this mentality.

This series of illustrations depict the psychological activity of women when they look in the mirror, and is an externalized manifestation of appearance anxiety. I wanted to show the appearance anxiety of women and the unfair treatment they receive, such as negative comments, intentional belittling, humiliation and other forms of degrading treatment. By showing the current situation of women, these images act as a call for understanding and tolerance in society. If you look closely, you will see that all my characters have big ears, which can be interpreted as “more sensitive to external voices”. I thought of this as an artistic abstract expression.

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For this series, I focused on exploring the use of light and shadows. I found that light and shadows, as an important artistic language, could not only reproduce visual images, but also reveal the theme and connotation of the work. During the creative process, I found that I had a problem I — excessive decoration of light and shadows. In fact, light and shadows are to serve the content, not just to pursue the beauty of the picture. So I adjusted the picture and projected the light and shadows away from the front of people, which played a good role in highlighting the main body and setting off the center.

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NAKED BODY ON STAGE