These emotionally charged illustrations are here to make your imagination wander

In New York City-based illustrator Xiao Hua Yang’s work, reality isn’t escaped from but gently shifted. Imagination is left to wander, but it always circles back. Inspired by dreams, books, passing observations and the small events in daily life, each piece carries a subtle emotional charge, be it through the motion of a time-lapsed starry sky or gorgeous spectrums of colour refracting off surfaces of water.

Xiao’s workflow includes working digitally in Photoshop and incorporating analogue elements such as pencil drawings, using the physicality of hand-drawn illustrations (weight, texture, resistance of materials) to drive the feeling of his subjects. Rather than stating ideas directly, they’re suggested. “Objects and scenes become a way to express things I may not fully understand myself, leaving the work open-ended. I’m increasingly interested in what is not shown or said – in implication rather than explanation,” says Xiao. “The works that resonate with me most are those that invite interpretation and resist telling the viewer what to think, and that sensibility naturally shapes my own practice.”

It can’t be overstated how lovely these illustrations are. His human subjects are swallowed by a huge natural world – vast skies that glow in alien purples, entire forests rendered through a golden yellow, water characterised by unusual palettes. Sometimes the “people” in these digital paintings may not be people, but human-shaped stand-ins for larger emotional ideas, as evidenced by a silhouette that sparkles like crystals in Odes2LA or a ghostly figure in Let Us Descend. “I’m very aware of my tendency to observe and internalise influences, and I try to stay attentive to maintaining my own voice,” says Xiao. “Finding that balance – learning from others while not dissolving into them – is an ongoing process, especially in an age of constant visual exposure.”