Today we’d like to introduce you to Rui Huang.
Rui, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
My name is Rui. Now I am a graduate student studying animation and digital arts at the University of Southern California. Before I came here, I was a concept artist in the game industry. I had worked at Gameloft, which is a French video game publisher and produced both mobile games and computer games, like Asphalt series, Modern Combat 5, Dungeon Hunter, etc. When I was in the game company, I was responsible for the environment design. My work experiences in the entertainment industry have enhanced my painting and design skills. I have a strong sense of color, composition, lighting. In 2017, I decided to resign and pursue a master’s degree abroad. Because I want to jump out of the comfortable zone and challenge myself, it was a big decision for my family and me because it was unusual for women like my age to do this in my country. I was very lucky that I got full supports from my parents. Later I put all my efforts into preparing the English tests and portfolio. In 2018, I got many offers and finally came to USC. I love the studying environments here and the people around me. I feel like so many talented and diligent people surround me. They kept inspired me and pushed me to work on better works.
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
I do both 2d and 3d animation. I like the illustration and motion design a lot. Each work of mine has a background story. I usually develop a simple idea first then dig deeper and deeper. I got inspirations from different kinds of art, including novels, installations, oil painting, and films. Most of my work has a similar theme: an individual’s fate or journey. And I like to explore the inner feelings of people. Even though people have different experiences in life, but they will have similar emotions, like sadness, anxiety, helplessness, anger. I want to do work that will resonate with people. Recently, I am preparing my thesis project, which is about unresolved grief. I want to help people understand the process of it and finally get through it. This type of work is what I am doing now and plan to do in the future.
The sterotype of a starving artist scares away many potentially talented artists from pursuing art – any advice or thoughts about how to deal with the financial concerns an aspiring artist might be concerned about?
Maybe it is good to do multi-tasks at the same time. I had a job that could make a living and continue to work on my artwork using spare time.
Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
In 2019, I did a motion design for the Getty Museum. It was a huge immersive projection mapping event. I got a lot of good feedbacks from them and they asked me to work on it this fall. Last year, I did another freelance job for an animation film director. It was the animated video Birds for the band Imagine Dragons. I finished most of the background design for the video. You can watch it on YouTube and there are over 100 million views now. I posted most of my work on Behance and I am trying to build my website soon.
Contact Info:
- Address: 1337w 36th pl, Los Angeles, CA, 90007
- Website: https://www.behance.net/happyrui
- Phone: 4243434422
- Email: huangrui1126@gmail.com
- Instagram: ruihuang1126
Image Credit:
Rui Huang
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