An illustration depicting UM student\nlife on campus was recently exhibited in London. The illustrator is Yang Sio\nMaan, an alumna of UM\u2019s Department of English.<\/p>\n\n
Yang graduated from\nUM in 2015. Soon after her graduation, she travelled to the United Kingdom to\nstudy illustration. Upon returning to Macao, she continued with her artistic\npursuits. In July this year, she held her first solo exhibition in Macao titled\n\u2018Everywhere and Anywhere\u2019. Later in the same month, she was invited to attend\nthe World Illustration Awards 2019 (WIA) held in the UK as the Category Winner\nof the Advertising New Talent Award. <\/p>\n\n
Award-winning\nPoster of the Three Lamps District<\/p>\n\n
Organised by the Association of\nIllustration in the UK, this year\u2019s World Illustration Awards received 3,600\nentries from 68 countries and regions. Only 200 were selected, and these\ninclude Yang\u2019s two entries. One of her entries, titled \u2018Arts in the Three Lamps\nDistrict\u2019, became one of 16 Category Winners at the event. It was also the only\nentry from Macao to win an award at the event. Both illustrations were\nexhibited in the Somerset House in downtown London. <\/p>\n\n
According to Yang, the illustration Oh\nMy Uni Days<\/i> is a depiction of her impression of the Henry Fok Pearl Jubilee\nCollege during her first visit to the college. Not only has she taught\nillustration classes in the college; she has also created a series of\nillustrations at the invitation of the college\u2019s Associate Master Vivian Jiang.\nThese illustrations depict different college scenes, such as the High Table\nDinner, talent show, college library, and celebration of the Mid-Autumn\nFestival.<\/p>\n\n
UM Campus\u2014A Fountain of\nCreative Inspiration<\/p>\n\n
The UM campus is a fountain of creative\ninspiration for Yang. \u2018It could be anything: the music I suddenly hear, a joke\nmy friend tells, or something funny I see on the campus\u2026they attract my\nattention, and I record what they make me feel at the moment by sketching,\u2019 she\nsays. This time, taking the opportunity to receive the award in the UK, she\ntravelled to some other European countries and recorded funny events along the\nway in a sketchbook she carried with her. \u2018Sometimes people would stop and\nwatch while I was sketching, which was an amazing feeling,\u2019 she recalls.<\/p>\n\n
Actually, Yang had very limited exposure\nto illustration when she was in middle school. At the time, the only thing she\nknew how to draw were stick figures. But during her fourth year in college, she\nenrolled in a course in children\u2019s literature, which required the students to\ncomplete an illustrated children\u2019s book as an end-of-term assignment, and that\nbecame her first creative production. While studying at UM, she assisted the\nStudent Association in the Faculty of Science and Technology with the creation\nof posters and banners. Although just a beginner, she felt greatly encouraged\nwhen seeing the posters and banners she made on the campus. <\/p>\n\n
Doing Illustration\nFull-time<\/p>\n\n
After graduation from UM, Yang decided\nto pursue a career in arts, a field she knew very little about. \u2018I didn\u2019t even\nknow that there are college majors in illustration,\u2019 she says. So she enrolled\nherself in several painting classes and compiled her assignments from these\nclasses into a collection. Those classes were so tightly scheduled that Yang\nfelt like a full-time student. But her hard work finally paid off. Later, these\npainting assignments earned her a place at the University for the Creative Arts\n(UCA) in the UK.<\/p>\n\n
After graduating from the UCA with a\nmaster\u2019s degree in illustration, Yang set a goal for herself, which was to\nbecome a full-time professional illustrator in three years. But it was not as\neasy as she had imagined. A fresh graduate with no established reputation and\nno connections in the local arts scene, she had to work part-time to support\nherself for almost a year while doing illustrations at the same time. Later,\nshe found a full- time job in art administration while continuing to make\nillustrations for organisations in Macao and Hong Kong. It was only in July of\nthis year that she resumed illustrating full-time. <\/p>\n\n
Works that\nCommunicate with the Viewers<\/p>\n\n
Earlier this year, Yang held her first\nsolo exhibition titled \u2018Everywhere and Anywhere\u2019. The exhibition featured a\nseries of paintings of a Nowhere Man, who lacks a clear face. She explains, \u2018These\npaintings contain little stories, which mean different things to different\npeople. This Nowhere Man doesn\u2019t have a clear face, which creates room for\nimagination and allows the viewers to project their stories onto this person. I\nhope to create works that can communicate with the viewers.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n
Once, Yang was pleasantly surprised to\nhear from her friends that someone had seen her illustrations in a literary\nmagazine during a trip to Zurich, Switzerland. \u2018I never expected my works to\nend up on the other side of the world,\u2019 she says. \u2018Pursuing arts full-time is\nnot easy, but it gives me a lot of satisfaction, so I will keep going.\u2019<\/p>\n\n