Daily Inspiration: Meet Rhea Hu

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rhea Hu.

Hi Rhea, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Ever since I was a child, I have been doodling on any surface within reach.

At fifteen, I published my first illustrated book with Shanghai Fine Arts Publishing, a fantasy story about a girl and her imaginary monster friend. It came from the loneliness of moving away from home and the need to invent a world of my own. In high school, I made a lot of fan art. Drawing was a way to understand people and emotions, a space where I could express everything that felt unspeakable.

Later, I entered a program in Traditional Chinese Medicine, trying to balance creativity with security. I soon realized how little I truly knew about it, and how much it conflicted with who I was becoming. The endless animal experiments made me question the boundaries of ethics and the meaning of knowledge itself. I began asking: what kind of person do I want to become? What kind of world do I want to serve?

Those questions eventually led me back to art. Art allows me to stay in the gray areas where logic and emotion coexist. It allows me to embrace mystery authentically, and at the same time, its philosophy is embedded in the actual construction. Changing direction felt terrifying at the time, but it taught me something vital: it is never too late to start over. Every decision to move forward, even without clarity, is a small act of courage.

Now I am pursuing my MFA in Illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design and will graduate in June next year. But this journey doesn’t necessarily mean I will stay within the art world forever. I want to keep my openness toward different paths, just as I always have since childhood. I was born in Wenzhou, grew up in Shanghai, spent time living in Tokyo, and am now based in Rhode Island. Each migration has reshaped my way of seeing and understanding the world, reminding me that identity is not fixed but continually forming. My art practice grows from that same openness—an ongoing process of learning, relocating, and reimagining where I might belong next.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
The road has never been easy. During my university years, I struggled to understand who I was and what kind of life I wanted to build. Pursuing pharmacy with idealism turned out to be exhausting. The excessive animal experiments made me deeply uncomfortable, and my sense of purpose slowly disappeared. I started to doubt whether sensitivity and imagination were strengths or weaknesses in a world that valued certainty.

When I finally turned toward art, the struggle continued, but it transformed. I fought with my own need for control. Science had trained me to be precise and methodical, while art demanded freedom and vulnerability. It took years to learn that discipline and openness can coexist, that structure can hold space for wildness.

Language became another challenge. I move between two worlds: Chinese, my mother tongue shaped by censorship and caution, and English, my adopted language that still feels like borrowed clothes. Living in this in-between space has shaped how I see and create, always translating, always negotiating meaning.

Looking back, I’ve learned that doing something different from everyone else is rarely comfortable, but it is always worth it. No matter when you begin, it’s not too late. You just need to keep searching, stay honest with yourself, and build a community that keeps you grounded.

To other women who are creating or longing to create: your voice matters, even when-especially when-it feels too quiet, too strange, too different. It is all right to take detours, to fail, to start late, or to be the only one doing something different. The world needs your particular way of seeing. Don’t wait for permission. Don’t wait to feel ready. Start messy, start scared, start anyway.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
My work focuses on the reevaluation of personal experience and the relationship between inner life and the objective world. I observe people who have lost their ability to speak freely-those who have been silenced by history, power, or fear. Through my own experiences as a bisexual woman and immigrant, I recognize the echoes of those struggles in my own life. I see art as both a witness and a bridge, connecting isolation to understanding.

I often compare my creative process to a pearl-forming oyster. Questions, doubts, memories, and discomforts accumulate layer by layer until they transform into something luminous and whole. I work with modest materials-pencil, thread, paper, stone-because they carry traces of human touch and time. I use them to explore what I call constructed nature: how humans attempt to order the uncontrollable, to capture memory through control, to make sense of what resists sense.

What makes me proud is not only the artworks themselves but the community that grows around them. Teaching, collaborating, and exchanging ideas with others has shown me that art is not a solitary act. Finding your community means finding a mirror for your courage, a reminder that you are not alone in your questions. It reminds me that creation is not just about self-expression’s about connection, dialogue, transformation.

Can you share something surprising about yourself?
Four years ago, I posted my very first comic strip about masturbation. I was introducing a sex toy for women and describing the experience in a funny, accessible way. But unlike other online promotions that felt cold or overly sexualized, I created something different: a plush cotton ball character with long, thin arms and legs. She had no sexual organs, yet she spoke openly about the principles of women’s sexual pleasure. She was exaggerated, self-deprecating, calling herself a slut with humor and warmth, instructing other women on how to select toys based on their experience and needs.

What surprised me most was how people responded. The comic went viral. Many women told me they loved the cotton ball character-she felt refreshing, human, free from the male gaze that usually dominated sex toy packaging and marketing. Girls sent me messages saying they couldn’t stop laughing, that my cryptic and humorous expression of self-pleasure gave them courage. Some said it was the first time they felt permission to explore their own bodies without shame. It was as if, after women laughed heartily together, the binds of sexual shame that had existed for thousands of years loosened, just a little. Women’s sexuality felt a bit more free.

The company told me they received unprecedented orders because of my comic. Other companies began imitating the format and content in their own campaigns. But what mattered most to me wasn’t the commercial success-it was the realization that by creating something honest and joyful, I was influencing people I wanted to reach and many I never expected to. I had found a way to speak that could slip past censorship, past shame, past silence.

That moment changed everything for me. It affirmed my commitment to using illustration not just as personal expression, but as a tool to impact society, to shift conversations, maybe even to change small corners of history. It showed me that courage can be quiet, that humor can liberate, and that sometimes the most revolutionary act is simply being honest about what it means to be human.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://rheahu.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rheaaaaiou/

Image Credits
Photo by Gao Canyue