Meet zhijun he | illustrator

We had the good fortune of connecting with zhijun he and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi zhijun, is there something that you feel is most responsible for your success?
I would say it’s about constantly learning new things. I think a person’s creativity will decrease if he stays in his comfort zone for a long time. If one does not learn something new and then think about it, he will only repeat what one has done before. Each new thing is like a small stream, and the small streams keep coming together to form the big unstoppable river, which is creativity.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I was born and raised in China. As a child, I lived a very restrictive life because my parents used to be very traditional. I had to go to four hobby classes every weekend and got A in each of my tests to make my parents satisfied. I was really stressed out in high school, and one day I suddenly felt that I couldn’t go on like this, studying something I didn’t like, and living a life I didn’t want to live in the future. I told my parents that I wanted to study art and I was really surprised that they agreed.

I got the offer from School of visual arts and then I came to New York. I was fascinated by the completely different atmosphere from where I have lived before. In New York, everything is very reasonable. I often carried my camera and sketch book wherever I go, and used them to take notes from life. I will spend an afternoon in a café or a park, observing all the different kinds of New Yorkers passing by, watching every story that plays out around me. I began to think about the problems I had encountered as a girl growing up in a traditional Chinese family and Chinese society. This is the inspiration for my recent works.

If you had a friend visiting you in New York, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I will first take my friend to Brooklyn dumbo to watch the sunset there. We can see the Manhattan skyline from the top floor of the building next to the carousel. As the sun gradually goes down, the lights of Manhattan will gradually light up. Together with the river breeze makes peeople very relaxed

Then we will go to the Met museum. Met museum has extended closing hours on Friday and Saturday evenings. Without the crowds of people during day time, we can enjoy the artworks in peace at night. My friends and I can slowly walk through different periods of civilization and feel the time passing by. There are always some different bands playing symphony or jazz every week at the lobby.

Afterwards we will go to the East Village for a late dinner, where there are many local Japanese and Southeast Asian restaurants. Then we will walk to the film forum or metrograph to watch a movie, which show many old movies from the last century.

Many people have the impression that New York is famous for Times Square, Empire State Building and Wall Street. But instead of the bustling side of New York, I like the way it looks after the curtain comes down. Watching yellow cabs whiz by on empty streets at night, looking up is the never-ending light of the skyscrapers. New York is such a place, it takes a lifetime to get to it but never reach it.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
It is Hayao Miyazaki, a Japanese animator. I watched his movie when I was a little girl and his movies were my first impression for aesthetic. I cannot stop myself from thinking about the beautiful scene and wonderful story in his movies, so I started to learn how he drew. He has been my guiding light during all my years of learning art. It is not that his works have always inspired me or his painting skills that I can learn from, but his attitude to art has convinced me that art is meaningful to human society. Through a visual work of beauty, people can get a stronger impact than a single sound or word, can experience emotions they have not had before, and can be inspired. In my work, I also want to express my emotions to the audience in the form of illustrations.

Website: https://zhe137.wixsite.com/zhijunhe0429

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yink_oko/

Image Credits
zhijun he