Wong, Brie

This piece is called “Phases of Quarantine” and it was created using Procreate. Over the past year (and a bit) of being mostly confined to limited spaces – I somehow found that the relationship with myself had become warped. I often grew tired of how I looked, but being extremely shy – I had never been comfortable enough to branch out of my usual look. However, once the province went into quarantine, I had nothing but time to myself, and there was room for opportunity. Throughout quarantine, the time spent alone with myself led to me becoming experimental with how I presented myself. “Phases of Quarantine” shows the experimentation with self-presentation that I experienced. It is intended to depict the changes I went through during the last year, both physically and more subtly emotionally. While the pandemic is inarguably a negative force, for me, the opportunity it brought upon for me to experiment and try to find my true self and how I felt the most comfortable was something positive that I can be grateful for.

I am a Chinese-Canadian artist who specializes with character-focused art. I am currently a second-year student at Emily Carr University of Art + Design and I am majoring in illustration. Being someone who identifies as queer and is 3rd generation Chinese, I’ve always struggled with the concept of identity and self-image. Because of this, I find that I often project myself into my work to illustrate the way my experiences have impacted me in life. For me, art is a way for me to communicate things that I may not be able to communicate under regular circumstances. I am very passionate about Asian issues (particularly the concept of the Asian-American/Asian-Canadian experience) and how art can be used to bring awareness/normalize these personal, yet often shared stories.