Chris Cheung is a Hong Kong-born designer and illustrator finishing up her final quarter at the Savannah College of Art and Design whose character and creature designs bring a unique voice to the illustration world. Her goals in creating illustrations are to bring joy, comedy and acceptance. Her overall interest in people and their human complexities started when she worked at a summer illustration program for children with dyslexia, where hidden inner worlds were explored through art and conversation. Originally practicing in traditional inking, she then transitioned into working with a digital process that emulates the same textures for a body of work that includes editorial illustrations, print advertising, product design and short animations.
“My art explores my understanding of myself and my making sense of the world. Art is directly connected to my identity — as one developed the other would too. In this respect, art became a record of my own reflections and growth. My favorite subject matter to create are creatures and characters. Usually the goal in mind is to make myself laugh as I draw. The goal is also to spark the kind of simple, genuine joy I remember feeling as a child. My hope is for the viewer to enjoy that feeling too. Besides joy, I create characters who have a silliness to their quality, who are colorful, full of attitudes and have loud personalities. These are some traits in people I’m most fond of — it only makes sense that my characters would mirror that. My art also plays with what I find comedic and beautiful about the human condition, the good and the bad parts. People are complex, full of contradictions and the same is reflected throughout my mark making which is both careful and carefree. My final hope is for viewers to enjoy all these qualities in my characters and find acceptance for the same in themselves.”
With the goal of capturing the classic summer feel, “Cool Kid” features a kid giving a thumbs-up while holding a skateboard. A reminiscence of childhood and its silly humor, Cheung wanted to illustrate a kid that loves himself and looks very cool, yet does not take himself seriously. This feel-good illustration was inspired by the old persona of Oliver Tree, Turbo, whose chaos and artistry is something that Cheung looks up to.
This piece features a Budgett frog, one that Cheung finds cute and funny. Her goal with this piece was to put the feeling of excitement and joy into it. She started the illustration with the frog and expanded around it with more little marine animal creatures, allowing herself to just have fun drawing.
A more design-focused piece, Cheung wanted to create a peach that looked juicy and cool, but also gross. This particular piece was traditionally inked and digitally colored and features a distressed peach with a bandage labeled ‘Idaho 7.’
Nissin is an iconic cup noodle brand, especially in Asian culture. Cup noodles were nostalgic to Cheung’s childhood and are considered a special treat and comfort food. Delicious, convenient, warm, filling and healing were words that came to Cheung’s mind when thinking about these cup noodle. And to this day, it still makes her happy and is a self-proclaimed hangover cure. Because of such good feelings associated with it, Cheung illustrated this piece to celebrate the Nissin brand turning 50 years old.
To check out more of Cheung’s groovy art, you can check out her Instagram @chemicalsoup.art